Gambit
by Vanya-Deyja
Summary: Yami Sennen lives a relatively simple life as head of an administrative nightmare. Until he and delicious A-Grade sociopath Yugi Motou begin a private rendezvous. Further complications arise to include a war, a crown, a hero and a monster. Y/YY
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** Important author notes at the end. I'd suggest you read the first two before this chapter but otherwise go nuts little ones!

**Warnings:** death, swearing like sailors and excessive smut.  
**Pairings:** Yami/Yugi. Side Atem/Yugi later and sort of Yami/Heba (it's very complicated that one)  
**Updates:** weekly (might switch to fortnightly)

'**Gambit'**_- __An opening in which a player makes a sacrifice, typically of a pawn, for the sake of some compensating advantage. OR A device, action, or opening remark, typically one entailing a degree of risk, that is calculated to gain an advantage._

* * *

CHAPTER ONE

The Minister for Defence had a policy which generally involved capping office politics with military precision. Rules of conduct in his wing of the Palace were fairly simple:

_1. Bitch with your friends.  
2. Sit on your ass at home.  
3. No, I don't like any of you. They don't pay me enough for that.  
_  
It all worked swimmingly in theory and not so much in practice. Though perhaps that was lumping the military and administration components of his career too close together. Some things worked exceptionally well: the Empire was gaining territory in the war, as the youngest member of the Ministry he had just enough self-control to handle the perversion and procrastination of the Emperor and co, and generally speaking no one had really gone over the photocopying budget in the office. His secretary was actually re-arranging the spread sheet to redirect the money they didn't spend on memos to throat lozenges, strong coffee and the manliest of commodities expensive chocolate. Yes, it was a trite solution, and yes if Minister Sennen was still reporting for field work the docs would have something to say about his cholesterol but as he was not still on active military duty all that could amount to a big fat, summative, _fuck it_.

All things considered military hierarchy in the Empire was actually fairly stable too. Partly or entirely, depending on the source you inquired from, because Mister Yugi Motou was no longer part of military hierarchy. Yugi Motou was legendary for two things: fucking up the Minister's long standing oath to refuse therapy and not playing well with others. Actually that was Yami Sennen's personal list. In the wider community of the nation Yugi Motou was famous for almost single handily winning the war effort and being a massive _dick._

The press loved him despite long standing orders, upon serious threats of execution from the Minister, that after that watershed incident Yugi Motou was not to ever _ever_ speak directly with press or be within a hundred meters of a news copter again. It didn't matter. Yugi Motou was their national war hero, the Ace in the Hole, the mech specialist every little boy wanted to curb stomp and he was of a very unsuiting appearance for his image. By that Minister Yami Sennen meant of course that for a universally acknowledged little _shit_ Yugi Motou stood five-six as the prettiest damn thing you ever did see. Fucking little...

The Minister was a strict man, fearsome, and in private all he really needed was a good back scratch, something strong and as little conversation regarding his childhood as possible. A man of simple needs and great reputation who rather wondered what sort of karma he'd racked up to deserve Yugi Motou during his life time. He couldn't recall any orphan drowning sprees in the last ten years. Sure Yami Sennen had accumulated an… _unsightly_, was the word the Emperor used, record at the Royal Military Academy for his failure to remain a member of any institutional club for longer than ten minutes. Even the Chess Team had endured a…_falling out_ with eighteen year old Yami Sennen. That however, in his opinion, did not slate a man of his birth rank and position for a career ensuring some angel faced little bitch didn't nuke the wrong side of the border in a tantrum.

"Minister," the secretary chirped uncertainly across the intercom on an otherwise lovely Thursday morning, "Mister Motou is here to see you."

Cue a show of supreme restraint as the Minister decided the mature course of action would be to take the meeting after screaming quietly into his palms. There. Much better. Alright, inhaling sharply, he positioned himself back in his chair and ran through the appropriate mental protocol preceding a meeting with his favourite little stress tumour. Sadly they were out of scotch. Still what was the worst the Knight could've done? He'd been on recon in some outpost near the Republican capital. All Yugi Motou had to do was count how many mechs the enemy had in their sandy waste basket excuse of a city and come promptly home.

"Alright, send him in," Minister Sennen ordered stoutly.

Oh, and it had been such a lovely Thursday till now.

It was never a good sign when Yugi Motou strutted into your office by opening the door backwards. Yami Sennen mourned the loss of another perfectly respectable, decent, day when Yugi Motou unhooked the door of his office with both hands cuffed behind his back.

"What did you do now Mister Motou?" Yami seethed in his seat, unable to contain himself from waiting till the Knight saluted, half because his therapist said he really needed to vent more and half because Yugi Motou could not salute in handcuffs.

Yugi turned still in his slick response suit, a combat model with strapped on secondary pads for rolling round in a mech cockpit like a psycho (note to self: revoke the '_like'_), and grinned round the key prized between his teeth. One leg shot back to kick the door shut while he strutted, there was no less offensive word, and at a foot or three back from the Minister's desk he spat the key with a saloon aim onto the Minister's paper work. That done he leant all his weight into one cocked hip, arms straight and began simply by saying:

"The good news is you're going to have to invent another medal to give me," which was directly followed by, "the bad news is those fuckers in HQ court martialled me again."

"So am I to assume you're resisting military arrest or is this how they decided to send you to me after due course?" He sighed bitterly leaning his temple into one hand.

"If you've seen the brig once Minister you've seen it at least another four times," Motou shrugged casually, Yami Sennen would've challenged him were he not so well aware that Yugi Motou saw the brig more frequently during the course of a year than Yami saw his solicitor.

"Honestly I don't know why they bother anymore." He groaned.

"You revoked the _Carte Blanche_ from March Minister." The Knight blamed before ordering lazily. "Un-cuff me?"

"I don't see why _I_ should bother," Yami grunted, he didn't think he could shake his head anymore without getting a cramp.

"Oh it's one little court martial," Yugi scoffed, "and Bohemia is putting _Mechs_at the top of their Christmas list this year. What more do you want from me?"

"Well you've thoroughly explored an exhaustive list of what I don't want. Now, hopefully, sometime in the next twenty years you can start guessing the alternatives." He chided snidely.

"I'm sorry Minister," the Knight cooed sweetly, "I never did finish that course on ass-kissing at the Academy."

Yugi Motou had apparently quite given up on the Minister's willingness to un-cuff him any time in the immediate future and slumping into his antique chaise backed up against the far wall hiked one leg over the other. Sighing Yami slumped back in his own seat, eyed the paint cracks in the ceiling and started to consider the options for early retirement or dishonourable discharge from the service of the Emperor.

"Alright, that's it," Yami decided smacking his palm stoutly against the surface of his abused hard wood desk. "I have had it up to _here _with you."

"I know Minister," Motou sighed smugly in his slouch, "I really have to kick this habit of winning your war. It looks shit on my record."

"New rules," Sennen snapped loudly, and all at once that traitorous index finger of his was waggling sharply at Motou like the laser sight of a ballistic. "You're working with a damn team next time!"

"Ha!" Yugi cawed snidely. "Minister, I thought you and I worked through this when the chain of command put a _restraining order_ on me."

It was a beautiful strategy really. Three hundred officers up to and including three of the generals had filed simultaneous restraining orders en masse upon Mister Motou on what had been a reasonably lovely Tuesday till the memo hit his desk. Minister Sennen had been forced to re-establish a _fucking_ archaic Order of Knights to keep Motou in the armed forces after Special Ops had refused to have him anywhere near their barracks. He didn't blame them. He'd heard all about that Christmas party in particular.

Currently concerning Motou there was only one chain in the command. Motou answered directly to the Minister for Defence, Yami sadly till he developed a multiple personality to handle the shit, and Motou then promptly pottered off to do whatever he felt like. If those urges didn't so frequently win them landslide victories Yami would've reinstated the guillotine as a form of military execution.

"There's no point having a knighthood if you're the only member," Yami snapped, it was depressing really. "Elite special ops officers will be placed under your command, despite my better judgement, and you will be damn happy to have them."

It wasn't a good strategy really but then at least someone else could endure Motou on a frequent basis. Maybe with a group tethered to slow him down the prodigy would finally discover some submerged leadership qualities and play mother hen. He could have a little psycho family to traumatise the enemy with and maybe, just once, Sennen would have a bargaining chip over him.

"And second," he boomed. "You are not laying one devious finger on a Mech rig until you set up and _attend _regular appointments with a military therapist."

"_Ha!_" The little shit emphasized lurching in his seat, cackling forward wildly, like some deranged strumpet sprawled across the Minister's chaise

"If I have to see one so do you," maturity was fast sinking this ship that was certain but on the inhale the Minister still couldn't recover it. That infectious, vein throbbing, temper Yami had acquiesced from his father and perfected under the care of his guardian was out in full bloom this fine Thursday.

Yugi Motou cackled, harlot he was, into the arm of the chaise as if he was at some goddamn slumber party and Yami was quite sure that unflattering lower lip twitch of his was beginning to reform.

"Smashing idea!" Yugi laughed. "I've never had a _profession_ ban me! Shall I aim for that by Christmas or would you like the mass resignation of all your staff before October?"

"No missions without a crew," Yami repeated sternly. "No crew until you see a therapist. That's it. I don't care if I have to bench you for the rest of the year."

"You _will_." He teased smugly.

"No, the Nation will," the Minister corrected shortly, "and I'm not a charitable sod."

"Clearly," the strumpet snorted amusedly, "anything else Minister?"

"No Motou." He snapped. "Take your ass out of here."

"I'd salute Sir but I'm going to have to bow." Yugi purred as he hooked himself up onto his feet and sauntered across the carpet back towards the door. He gave a flourish of a dip as his hands grasped the handle behind the small of his back and tilting his head back up grinned wildly. "Have a great day Minister."

The pen, mightier than the sword, was probably not as convenient as tool to stab his own eyes out with Sennen rued.

* * *

What Yami Sennen did not like to admit was that in all actuality he was likely to lose this debate. Not for lack of vigour mind, the Minister for Defence was as stubborn as anyone raised with the Crown Prince had to be to get half a word in edgewise. The royal family, known for their drinking, gambling and…_well_, Yami didn't need to fill in that gap but needless to say as cousin to future king, orphaned and politically powerful Yami Sennen had not been raised to be a wisp. Whatever pack of wolves had weened and reared Yugi Motou (before the Knight ate them assumedly) had likewise filled his veins with spite thick enough to congeal the boy's blood if ever a breath of self-loathing struck him strongly enough.

It was what Mahado, his closest inferior and nearest smoking companion, rather eloquently called _"the timeless struggle between an immovable object and an unstoppable force"_ though he rather conveniently shied away from specifying who was who. Mana didn't say very much on the whole debacle outside of swearing lowly at the photocopier when Sennen order for the increasingly frequent caffeine refills.

The army, in theory, loved the concept of being without Yugi Motou. Yami Sennen loved the concept of a world, a glorious Utopia really, where he could go on with his duty and just fire the nasty little spitfire to exile never to be seen again by man or beast or politician (Yami had long since been taught that Politicians were somewhere in the chain of being entirely separate to decent men). Sadly however in practice, like so many things, it didn't really work.

Three weeks in and while Yugi Motou strut himself down the Capital high street in full view of a hungry media Yami was saving soppy kneed generals on the front from their own incompetence. The faddy-dodders he commanded were senile old bats really. They, all of them Sennen included, rather depended on Motou's wild, insensitive, virility to carry them through the harder patches when it came to the languishing war. The generals, the Ministry in general, got to play strategy games on their maps, report numbers and then send Yugi Motou in. Motou had a flouncing disrespect for authority sure but his desires (which consistent mainly of: _'why what on Earth can I blow up today? Golly gee whose life haven't I ruined yet?'_ Yami imagined) so often made his job easier.

The real crux of it was that, quite frankly, ordering large numbers of troops, feeding them, clothing them, dealing with their simpers about Christmas with families… was hard, expensive, work. Lobbing a box of TNT, a kind of tactical nuke, they called Yugi Motou at the enemy was quick, cheap, easy and devastatingly successful. Without him the Minister had his work cut out for him and needless to say both his stress and cholesterol levels were rising.

"The bloody hell is going on down here?" The Emperor grumbled finally when he pottered into Sennen's office (after the obligatory passing pat to Mana's unsuspecting ass).

The Emperor was a simple man. He liked war. He was convinced the Republic existed entirely on stolen Imperial lands he wanted back and he wanted them back as quickly as possible preferably in a grandiose fashion.

"Pardon Majesty?"

"What's Motou doing flashing his ass round town?" Gozaburo prodded more plainly. "Jenkins tells me we're bleeding funds and we've lost three clicks on the south line!"

"We're having something of an office dispute." Yami sighed primly.

"Well settle it!" He huffed. "Want this damn thing moving on. Got to take some of the coast by Christmas you know."

"Yes Majesty, well," Sennen exhaled again, "Motou's being…difficult. I can't, in good faith, let him out onto the front till he takes his psychological evaluation. He's well overdue."

"Of course he is, he's a raging lunatic," the Emperor snorted. "Send him out anyway. Boy's no good _sane_ darn it all Sennen. "

"I need him to respect the chain of command." Yami empathized. The liquor he had stashed in that special bottom desk drawer of his was increasingly tempting especially as, utterly unapologetic, good old uncle Gozaburo took his mid-morning swig from the flask permanently perched on his hip. "It's a matter of principle Majesty."

"Can we win the war without him?" The Emperor bristled round his whiskers.

"I really wish we could?" Sennen offered.

"Get him in a cockpit," the man gaffed. "I'm tired of seeing his ass over the papers. He's making a mockery of the military. Making you look like a right tosspot after that defeat in Belgrade not to mention."

"I know," Yami groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose fiercely. "I'll get right on that Majesty."

"That's my boy!" He decided. "Smashing then!"

Yes the Emperor always was more dashingly social when one gave into his every whim. Sennen had learnt that young. None of the royal line really seemed to have any patience for anything. The amount of time the Crown Prince spent in that damn laboratory Sennen was convinced he would end up ruling the nation via proxy when Gozaburo carked it (from liver or lung cancer whichever one edged the other out in the race).

* * *

Yugi Motou was making a mockery of several other things when the Minister finally tracked him down. Had no schedule, impossible to find, and while security assured him Motou was still in the Military block of the Palace they weren't quite sure where and no one really wanted to get him. When calling the emergency phone in the gymnasium had failed, after a quick camera check, Sennen had decided to totter down there himself to fetch the buzzard.

Yugi Motou's mother should've been ashamed of herself, whatever Medusa she was, for allowing such a sprite to inhabit such a perfectly appealing body. That was Sennen's ruing anyway when he found the Knight pounding the track of the treadmill sweating through a pair of delicious little shorts which did nothing to hide his ass and everything for his legs.

"Motou!" Sennen roused his voice. He rather wanted the pilot to jump, startled, at least once but with this he was disappointingly ignored. "_Motou!"_

"Yeah what?" Yugi called lazily, breathless, from the tread arms swinging.

"We need to talk." He used his best '_I am the big scary commander voice_' (which the press had successfully used to turn his image into some kind of spiked codpiece wearing tyrant) but to no avail.

"Knock yourself out." Motou panted and huffing tight through his nostrils Sennen was reduced to strutting in closer. Temptation emerged, briefly, to turn off the treadmill at the wall with dramatic flair but Yami rather considered Motou might actually hit him.

"You need to go back on the field."

"I know." Motou grinned eyes ahead.

"Have you scheduled to see a psychiatrist yet?"

"Nope." Those eyes, nor that grin, ever wavered. "How about you?"

"You've been all over the paper." The Minister hissed.

"Thinking about going into modelling," Motou joked.

"Well you'll certainly need to consider alternative means of employment if you don't meet your medical requirements for active duty." He huffed properly.

"Awesome." Yugi answered still breathless, hair bouncing off his face. "Send me a memo when you win the war."

"Motou!" He grunted, fingers flaring between either strangling the brazen harlot or himself till eventually resolving to clench in fists.

"You need a vacation Minister."

"We need to come to a resolution," Yami snapped, "it's pressing to national security."

"What did you have in mind?" The Knight inquired blandly the corners of those full lips perking up. Little harlot knew he'd won.

Sighing Sennen leant himself into the frame of the treadmill unable to really bother asserting his authority stance much longer.

"You take a team with you next time. I want to turn the Knighthood into an elite _unit._" Not just one sociopath with a very big laser however much that intimidated the enemy.

"I don't play well with others."

"Do you really want to stay here any longer?"

"Nope, getting fat," Yugi concurred bluntly. "What's plan B?"

"That _is _Plan B."

"What's Plan C?" Motou grinned cheekily as the vein in Yami's forehead reached critical mass.

"Now you listen here," Yami grumbled thrusting out his index finger, "I am getting thoroughly fed up with your nonsense. You take a crew. You let a few competent pilots tag along with you on your next mission and I can get back to running the damn army."

"If they die it's not my fault." He retorted simply. "I'm not covering anyone's ass. If they can't keep up I'm not going back for them."

Sweet mother of Christ, the Minister was fairly sure the Gates of Hell had ripped asunder so Beelzebub himself could gape at Yami Sennen's fortune. The impossible had occurred Yugi Motou had consented to a compromise. Praise the Lord!

"You'll be working with elite special ops." He clarified with as much prim composure as he could manage. "All you have to do is give orders. I'm sure you'll relish the chance to boss someone around."

"Natural leadership qualities."

"Dashing, well," Yami was at a loss as to how to end a conversation with Yugi Motou that did not involve shouting or threatened masculinity. "Best get prepped. You'll be briefed with a team shortly."

"Don't send anyone you like."

* * *

"_Yugi Motou?_" The scraggly blonde cried. "Really?"

The Minister glanced, despairing eyes in a stern face, to Mahado who stood beside him with the clip board. This was their best sharp shooter? He was officially the monkey king of an army of savages. Not that the blonde's immediate peers seemed proud of his outburst upon the announcement. As a matter of fact the green eyed male to the right seemed rathe sickly in his parlour.

"Something wrong Mister Katsuya?" Sennen inquired, one fine brow raised.

"Ah!" The blonde caught his protocol suddenly. "No Sir! That just sounds amazing Sir!"

"I take it you've never met Mister Motou then." Yami snorted and the brunette on the end of the line quirked into a grin while the green eyed centre male continued to languish miserably.

"Uh…no Sir?"

"You'll learn."

* * *

He did.

"Sir!" Katsuya piked before the Minister could so much as part his lips. "I would like to formally request my removal from Commander Motou's unit!"

"Quiet down Katsuya," he snapped, "we're about to begin the debriefing."

The blonde turned crimson, struggled to salute with his broken arm on reflex and under the Minister's glower smacked up his second hand a fumbling second later against his forehead almost knocking Ryuji over beside him.

Motou ignored his trio of denizens and sauntering across pulled himself up to sit upon the edge of Sennen's desk leaning dully into his arms. Yami would've shouted at him as well but he wasn't prepared to lose a debate with Yugi Motou in front of the other troops. His reputation as the fearsome warlord would be irrevocably shot so, for the moment, he figured that he could do himself more favours by appearing to be in corroboration with the troublemaker.

"General Mahado tells me you decimated most of the Belgrade unit and forced the remaining Republican pilots into a strategic retreat. Yet I have a room full of miserable looking victors."

And one scraggly sharp shooting blonde with a broken arm. Yugi snorted on his desk, one leg hooking over the opposing knee and silent, mercifully, seemed deliciously sour. Yami could get used to packing the Knight up to go play with other children if it persisted in making him so unhappy.

"Sir," Hiroto voiced, "I think there was a serious failure in communication within the chain of command."

"I agree," Ryuji the green-eyed intellect added a little more confidently. "Motou totally abandoned us out there."

"Motou?" Yami inquired leaning back in his desk. This might be fun. It couldn't hurt either way actually this meeting was a great excuse to put off calling the Minister for Finance.

"Ya think? Cause see, what I saw out there was a bunch of _morons _who can't take out some nobody in a Z6." Yugi snorted twisting over his shoulder to the Minister. "I gave the _Looney Toons_ here one job: take out the left unit. By the time I'd utterly destroyed the remaining _three_these clowns were playing tag with some Republican Lieutenant while his unit withdrew."

"We asked you for assistance!" Katsuya grunted. "That guy was crazy-good!"

"Oh please," Motou sneered, "he was in a Dragon Mech. They're tripods. All you have to do is shoot at the base and he legs come out right from under them. They're top heavy! Didn't the academy teach you anything?

"Alright enough," Yami waved them down, "point is: you won. We've reclaimed Belgrade. As for _this_" he gestured, "sort it out. Motou's in charge. Hiroto, Ryuji, Katsuya you received your orders, you complied, next time I expect a better performance."

"_Yes Sir._"

There nothing quite like the chorusing of unhappy drones. Yami Sennen saw this as an almost personal victory. Yugi Motou miserable, forced into compromises, bringing back a team of elites alive… Oh it wasn't going to last. He wasn't that naïve. Motou would find a way to squirm out of it (or _rip_ his way out of it given his aggression) but till then Yami was going to savour this.

As they filed out, Motou languishing stubbornly on the desk, Yami had parliamentary meetings to consider. He was going to have to bring paper work. The Minister for Agriculture was dubiously sober most mornings, which should prove amusing, but Gangsley tended to rave endlessly so a few cultured, adult, distractions were in order.

"Something wrong Motou?" Yami sighed drawing out the top compartment of his desk.

"Want to take bets on how long the toys will last?" He supposed coyly.

"You break them you have to give your condolences to the families in person." The Minister threatened. He hated signing letters to war widows. Ate up so much of his coffee break he had Mana forge his signature these days. It was a ridiculous notion that the Minister for Defence should pretend to be personally moved by the tragic early death of a grunt too stupid to move up the ranks or a find job where bullet proof vests weren't part of the uniform. Now the day Motou died he would show his compassion for the human race. He'd have a little party and everything.

"Will I get new ones?" Yugi pondered aloud.

"Yes."

"Darn." He sighed. "On a scale of one to Katsuya how annoying are their replacements?"

"Well no one will ever outshine you if that's any concern." Yami snorted.

* * *

"What's that?" Mana perked over his shoulder intrusively later that afternoon, clustering in to infringe upon Yami personal space as he hunched at his desk while she flittered with the filing.

Little bumblebee Mana with her tight, bright, voice and a body that wouldn't quit had been his somewhat conspiratorial secretary now for ten years. Yami envied how a woman her age could still look so at home on a beach. Since leaving active duty on the field he'd felt a little poncy.

"New mech they're building," the Minister shrugged before realizing in remark, "top secret though Mana dear."

"Of course," she tapped her nose wading back to the filing cabinet and the stack of teetering manila on his pushed aside coffee table. "New super weapon?"

"The Emperor hopes so." Yami shrugged flipping through the files. "Hog tied me into funding and supervising them. Till they show me something aside from bills however I'll maintain its complete poppycock. The EX0D1A," he sneered, "most bizarre thing I've ever heard."

"Speaking of bizarre," Mana grinned in elaboration.

"Oh let's not," he groaned, "I have to talk about Yugi Motou enough as is."

"Alright then," she surrendered with uncharacteristic and peppy ease, "something else then?"

"_Anything_," Yami huffed.

"How's your love life?"

The file slumped against the desk as, slouching, Yami was forced to shot her the most mellowed look of disbelieving scorn he could muster. Really? They were going to open up that old chestnut again? It must've been a Monday…

"Non-existent," he clarified, "and what have I said about the discussion of private matters within the office?"

"_Gossip with your friends_," Mana recited the second cardinal rule, giggling. "Aren't I?"

"During working hours I don't have to consent to any discussions about theoretical dates." He shot back with a snort.

"You need one though Minister," she teased, "we aren't getting any younger. Your tits will be scrapping the sidewalk soon."

"Charming imagery, gold star," was his immediate diversion. He knew he was getting old. He didn't need reminding. Thirty-two was a disgusting number.

"Oh come on," Mana laughed. "You'd be a catch. You're the Emperor's nephew, sixth-or-something in line to the throne, if you can't get a toy boy what hope do I have?"

"I don't leave the office," Yami snorted, "I don't _have _a private life. Besides I have plenty of hopeful suitors they just all want something and most of them are noble girls looking for marriage prospects…"

"God's first leeches eh?" She added knowingly. "No reason you shouldn't work a little magic though."

"Eh," Yami grumbled, "the older I get the less effort I want to put into the maintenance of someone else's feelings. Especially when it comes to _toy boys_."

"Get someone without feelings then. Get laid." Mana supposed flippantly.

"Everyone has feelings," the Minister sighed, "it's a curse. Even I have a few clustered up in my shrivelled little heart."

"Everyone except Yugi Motou."

"Yes well I was referring to people not demons."

* * *

The royal linage in Cyprus was something of a disaster plainly put. A bit of drunken shambles all in all. Yami Sennen's father had died after his birth but before the death of his grandfather which, in some circles, left the matter of next-in-line to the throne rather debatable. His uncle, the current Emperor Gozaburo, thought so clearly given how he assumed supremacy when Yami was a toddler rather than endure as head of a regency. Yami wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. He rather pushed his potential supremacy as 'true heir' aside. The current Emperor had raised him as his ward, rather well actually the temper and negativity aside (though how he'd managed that between boozing and whoring was mysterious), and Yami had no great interest in assuming any more responsibility than he already held.

Then of course there was Gozaburo's actual line: Seto, Noah and Mokuba. Supposedly all three were Yami's full blooded, legitimate, cousins which was a pure fabrication of the highest calibre. Noah was, indeed, Yami's cousin or at least poor boy had been before the haemophilia soured that bright little spark. His passing had been tragic and in the wake of such everyone tended not to discuss how the Emperor had miraculously '_discovered_' two more sons. The official story was that Gozaburo had always had three sons. The official story was the safest for anyone who didn't want to live under house arrest. Yami had been twelve at the time of the propaganda campaign obscuring little Seto and Mokuba's adoptions. Now adult men they had very little to do with each other but they had once been raised rather closely. These days however Seto, six years Yami's junior, stayed in his laboratory tinkering with preposterously named mechs and Yami remained the most practical level-headed member of the family.

Finally there was, secretly, little Yugi Motou. Yami was hazy of the exact specifics. He did know for certain at least that the Emperor had taken eight year old Yugi Motou into custody from God knew where and immediately set the little prodigy to his academic and military greenhouse for cultivating. Six years Seto's junior and twelve Yami's however Yugi had been raised in something of blissful, spoilt, isolation specifically, Yami theorized, to create the very decimating and calamitous force of nature '_spirit of war'_ creature he now was.

The point of it was that Gozaburo had assembled a shambled little collective of wards, three of them prodigies of respective fields, which sounded blissful but in reality was quite imposing during 'family' dinners. Not that Gozaburo was a family dinner kind of man but every now and then he got the urge to assemble his little menagerie and gloat somewhat over them.

Yami didn't like dinners because they very frequently involved three of his greatest pet peeves: time that could've been better spent, children and socialization. The most vivid of such dinners Yami remembered from his youth was a long and colourful list which had more than once involved hard liquor. Seto and Yami tended to tumble into technical debates about the running of the army. Yugi rather intimidated Mokuba. Yugi intimidated everyone though. When Yami was twenty-four and little Yugi had been twelve placing them across the table had ended in the passing of several unsavoury glances.

A discordant group surely, not the standout occasions of the Minister's social calendar however sparse it was and matters were only made worse when in the elevator to the more private wings of the palace he found Yugi Motou coming up from the basement hangar where the Knight's mech was serviced.

"Do you own anything other than uniforms and piloting gear?" Yami proposed instantly as he took stride beside him.

"Do you own anything other than suits?" Yugi returned arms crossed slackly as he leant into one leg.

"No."

"Got a cigarette?"

"I didn't think you smoked." Sennen was never very successful at being informal and slipping his hand in his breast found himself handing over a pair.

"I don't." Yugi snorted. "You can guarantee he'll ask me for one though."

"Why do you think I have them?" He retorted a fraction lighter and smirking beside him Motou made quite an elaborate sweeping gesture to permit Yami first exit from the elevator.

* * *

**Notes:**

1 I'm going to include, in brackets, _tracks_ for scenes (aka the songs I listened to when I was writing that scene) and then an '_end track_' note to tell you where to stop listening to a certain song. They're just suggestions which might help you guys get in the mood. Check back next time for more details.

For this chapter there are no set songs but I listened to on low:  
(Mainly) Buffy the Vampire Slayer- _Going Through the Motions Instrumental/Karaoke Version_

Fountains of Wayne- _Stacy's Mom Has Got it Going On_  
Lords of Acid- _I Must Increase My Bust_  
Ataris- _In This Diary  
_Wheatus_- Teenage Dirtbag_

2 I'll also be including _'hint songs'_ from time to time. These might be what I consider a characters' theme song or a couples' theme song and these will give you hints as well. They'll be posted at the end of the chapter.

For this chapter:  
Yugi- _Miranda Lambert- Fastest Girl in Town_  
Yami- _Avenue Q- There is Life outside Your Apartment_

3 This fic is sort of what I imagine would happen if _Black Adder, Code Geass, Zoids_ and _YuGiOh _beat each other up in a bar. You'll probably catch references to all three. Which is probably why I've been _loving_ writing this.

4 No, Yami and Yugi aren't nice people. They're wonderfully pre-damaged. I wouldn't call them anti-heroes in that I'd be more inclined to call them villains. That said I'm of the firm belief that the longer you keep a bad guy on screen the less intimidating they're revealed to be. Inside every evil empire there's a lot fairly normal shit happening. Even Voldemort takes bathroom breaks.

5 Carte Blanche/ Blank Cheque – basically when you get military permission to do whatever is necessary with full backing from your national authority which became a thing in 1914 during WWI.

6 Response Suit/Combat Suit- a kind of suit worn to help up your effectiveness when piloting a mech (or giant robot), looks something vaguely like those in _Evangelion_ or _Code Geass_. Mechs themselves are closer in size to _Code Geass_ robots and similar shape.

7 Where are they? Well you can think of it as somewhere between far future Earth or distant planet with same name. The people of Cyprus are mostly Catholics for one thing, celebrate Christmas and both countries share some catch phrases we're familiar with.

8 Empire = _Cyprus_ (a city close to Egypt in Shakespeare's _Othello_ where brave, diligent, Othello is tricked into killing his interracial wife and then murders himself in grief)  
Republic = _Bohemia _(a country in Shakespeare's _The Winter's Tale_. A sort of pastoral wonderland where lost princesses find true love and old wounds are healed.)

9 Yugi's subordinates- Otogi Ryuji, Honda Hiroto and Jonouchi Katsuya

Hope you all got a giggle~


	2. Chapter 2

Hey guys, how's everything~? Remember tracks apply through scenes till I tell you to switch to a new track.

* * *

CHAPTER TWO  
(Track- Dmitri Shostakovish _Waltz No. 2_)

Gozaburo switched between his liquid and tobacco based poisons just as flickered between praise and cynicism. By the time the evening was over Yami could safely predict no one would feel pleased with themselves but who the Emperor's ire landed on in particular was up to his wavering moods as they took their seats. A prankster at heart the Emperor insisted on having Yami to his left, Seto to his right, Yugi to Yami's side and Mokuba to Seto's so the eldest and youngest pair could lock eyes juxtaposed. Had quite a sense of humour the old man did making mini battlefields across the tablecloth.

Mokuba flinched upon raising his head from his book to find Yugi staring back at him and startled ducked back down like a rabbit before Yami could make any introduction. Poor little Mokuba, their scholar, seemed ever more likely to be the only flower in a brood of ravenous dogs as the years progressed.

"Ah, so," Gozaburo grumbled a great potbellied warlord as he slapped down in the seat at the head of the table already armed with the first glass of the night. "My boys."

Yugi's eyebrows flexed up beside Yami towards Seto who, turned away with his chin in his hand, returned the empathetic gesture with a roll of his pupils. Long suffering in this precarious family unit Yami found the whole mess increasingly uncomfortable. He knew he had the option of playing with his food and submitting himself to Gozaburo's one dinner rule: _'last man standing has to drain his glass.'_ Unfortunately as the only adult at the table with a real job Yami had to rise at five every morning.

"What have we been up to hmm?" Gozaburo demanded stoutly.

"Winning the war," Yugi retorted brazenly, with his ever healthy ego, as he drew his glass in. The fact he was now of drinking age quite worried the Minister beside him.

"Enduring the Minister for Finance," Yami shot when set upon with the Emperor's stare, "tells me we're going over budget the insufferable peon."

"Developing another array of new weapons for testing," Seto shrugged at his turn in the roll call.

"And what about _you?_" Gozoburo prodded at Mokuba. Apparently he had been set on as tonight's target. "While everyone else has been working what have you been doing with that allowance of mine?"

"Um…" Mokuba flushed. "Studying?"

"What _now?_" The Emperor sighed in exasperation.

"Philosophy?"

"Christ almighty," he grumbled into his glass.

It was as if a racing bell had rung out and Yami reached instinctively for his own glass of wine. Heaven help him. This was going to be an exceptionally long evening.

"Thank God for your brother."

Yami took a heavy swig as Gozaburo began a tirade about the faffing time-wasters of the higher education system. Yami heard something about '_educational reform_' and _'mandatory conscription'_before the Emperor tottered off into a stock favourite of his: his loathing for modern art.

"New weapons?" Yugi diverted quickly at Seto who perked to the call.

"Yes."

"Anything for me?" Motou teased with sharp eyes and quirked lips ever hopeful for a new toy.

"I've been working on an exceptionally powerful kinetic energy laser." Seto shrugged. "It needs field testing with someone who isn't an incompetent tosspot."

"Sign me up."

"Oh no," Yami snorted, "last thing we need is Motou armed with a giant laser."

Hadn't he made a mental joke to himself about this very same matter? Must everything conspire to bite him back in the ass?

"Nonsense!" Gozaburo entered. "If it's any good, which it will be knowing Seto, Yugi's just the man to test it. He'll put it through its paces. Make sure it can handle the real pressures of combat."

"So long as there's a nondisclosure I can enter into," Yami added flippantly still cradling his wine, "I want to be legally immune from any war crimes he may or may not inevitably commit."

"Yes, yes, of course." The Emperor acknowledged flippantly. "Now who's this Republican start up I've been hearing too much about?"

"Hmm?" The Minister blanked.

"_Atem Horakhty_," Yugi sneered, "distracted three of my tagalongs and now they think he's some kind of Bohemian hero to be."

"He's more sellable than you if anything." Seto remarked dryly.

"A backwater no-name," Gozaburo grumbled, "I don't like the man already. We'll have to properly introduce him to Yugi. Sooner characters like that are gone the better I always think."

"My pleasure," their weapon preened casually, "one of my sidekicks is convinced he's some sort of incredible natural talent. I'm sick of it."

"How old?" The Emperor inquired. "Not some babe faced brat like you I should think?"

"Baby faced alright," Yugi snorted with distain, "handsome. Older than me though. I think he's about Mokuba's age."

Yami didn't bother to point out that almost _everyone_in the military was older than Yugi Motou. At twenty he was no longer the youngest member of the professional army but considering the boy had been traipsing their trenched chess board officially since sixteen (which was, of course, illegal) he was difficult to displace from that image.

"Get rid of him won't you then?" The Emperor ordered lazily and nodding keenly Yugi complied. "There's a good lad."

* * *

Seto's electric pulse laser was a fearsome construction perhaps more so because it was on an already very efficient, very streamline, killing machine. Yugi Motou seemed enthralled with the new construct mounted on the mech, which he had for the last year used to cause havoc, which the Minister didn't all together consider for the best. Any time Yugi Motou smiled he was sure a soldier gave their dying breath somewhere or a mother felt their unborn child kick in fear.

"Think you can work with it Mutou?" Yami supposed stiffly.

"Oh Seto," he trilled low and exuberant, ignoring the Minister entirely. "It looks _epic._"

"I'll take that as a yes." The Crown Prince sighed to Yami sympathetically. "Don't break it Motou that cost me a lot of time and money."

"I want that nondisclosure on my desk tomorrow morning." Yami intervened to the brunette beside him. "I do not want to be responsible for what he does with that death machine."

"You are most of the time." Yugi called jovially curling his fingers up the side of the mech, finding footholds and handholds to scale the sizeable machine with the finesse and experience that only came from years of handling them. Yami and Seto both could scale a mech as comfortably as Yugi, true, but not quite with so much love or move one with so much devastation.

"What exactly does it do?" The Minister ignored.

"Shots a highly charged beam of what is essentially directed lightning. It's over three thousand degrees. It's not very wide or very large. It has long reach but it requires precision-"

"You hear that Motou?" Yami checked.

"Yeah! Yeah!" He dismissed flippantly so Seto and Yami could share another savoured sigh.

"In the lab tests we cut a rig in half. Solid titanium and steel, three inches thick, went through it like butter." The Prince informed the Minister.

"Pfft!" Yugi laughed throwing his head back. "Careful Majesty you're going to get me all hot and bothered!"

He was halfway up the mech by now, like a spider or a squirrel scrambling up a tree, and when he reached the top to jump between the equipment light feet bounded as if Yugi Motou were some harmless mountain goat in the hangar.

"Ignore him." Yami muttered dryly. "He tends to just go away and do his own thing if you don't make eye contact long enough."

"Hardly matters." Seto scoffed, shoving his hands into his pockets, he was perhaps the one person who disliked human beings with greater intensity than Yami Sennen. "I just want to prove it works. I know it works now I just have to convince those idiots with the equipment regulations."

"_Bah!_" He sneered. "Pencil pushers the lot of them. Though, one day one of your machines isn't going to be a spectacular success and then what will you do?"

"Make another one." The Prince retorted blandly. No sense of humour in Seto. Not even a little bitter one like in Yami's cold black heart or a sassy prickling of graveyard giggles like in Yugi's cavernous chest. It was a shame really.

_"Oh my God!_"

They turned, the whole Royal flush, to find Yugi's little gaggle of tagalongs gapping exquisitely up at the newly adapted machine and prancing forward Mister Jonouchi Katsuya looked like he might burst from his skin.

"That looks awesome!" Once again the blonde's excitement had escaped with his common sense. Apparently Seto's weapons were a cat among simple minded pigeons. "Do we get one of those as well?"

"Of course Katsuya!" Yugi laughed from the top of the framed scaffold holding the mech in place which he had eventually scaled.

"Really?" Ryuji piped quietly sticking his head out from behind the scraggly blonde hopefully. Even poor Mister Hiroto looked hungry at the prospect.

"_Of course not_you idiots," he snorted.

Ah, there it was, wasn't a full morning for Yugi Motou unless he dashed some hopes and dreams. Yami supposed the day just wasn't the same unless he made someone cry. Having his own little unit must've, in that way, quickly been becoming a blessing.

Yami would have to do something about that.

* * *

(Track- PSY _Gangnam Style_)

Katsuya had this tendency, Yugi had learnt, to swear in a continuous stream over the radio feed once combat started. Put him in radio silence, get him to take out guards, and the guy was steely but let him lose in close mech combat and he got a bad case of immediate verbal diarrhoea. To think these dipsticks wondered why Yugi didn't give them more orders when Katsuya filled up the signal with gibberish.

One day the blonde was going to give Yugi a headache, probably one day soon, and when pushed a little too far over that edge Yugi might just snap. Really who would notice in this kind of hectic haze if he took out Katsuya or if the enemy did? Yugi had seen it happen. He hadn't cared but he'd seen it happen. As a matter of fact some, now unemployed, officers had tried to assassinated him in such a fashion. It had been a _very_poor career decision.

The only good think about Katsuya's bullshit was it distracted the enemy as well.

"Motou," Hitoro was a litter sharper than their resident golden retriever. "What do we do? There's got to be at least twenty of them coming up fast."

Twenty? Hah! Yugi dealt with forty before his morning coffee. Elites these days.

"Just stay the fuck out of my way," he warned, "I'm breaking out his Majesty's gift."

Oh Yugi had been dying for the excuse to crank the electric pulse whatever-the-fuck the shiny was called. He flipped the sight, leant into his restraints, and dragging his teeth over his bottom lip felt the controls with one hand while he twisted the gas with another. The Republicans were idiots. Who came in formation anymore? In mixed mech units? Ha! Yugi thrust his machine right towards the centre of them on the rollers, they scattered, and just as he spun the charge of the laser rang out with a green prompt window flying onto one of his HD vid screens. He hit the button.

It was fucking beautiful. He needed to hug Kaiba. The Prince's laser sliced units clear in half and as Motou already had the machine twisting in the grass of the field the foot locks trying to stabilize the mech against the recoil couldn't take effect. He hadn't had time to disarm that safety protocol before leaving the hangar, it made his spin drag and slow as the restraints skidded trying to lock into the ground. He couldn't fix it properly now but mind whirring coolly as the Republicans panicked he tapped up the override command onto the opposing vid-screen and shut off all safety functions. He hardly used them anyway.

Hitoro and Ryuji were smart enough to come up behind him and herd in the scrambling enemy units trying to scatter away from Yugi. There wasn't a piece of equipment on any of these fuckers that could match what Yugi had just drawn out. It was beautiful really. He could hear the units nearest him wetting themselves.

A mech came round his back right. The right vid screen flared a warning arrow at the encroaching machine but Yugi was already aware of it out of the corner of his eye before the computer had registered the threat. That was how Yugi won. He was always three steps ahead. He'd been turning to cover his back before the dumbass in the H10 had thought to go for him. Yugi's thumb found the button of the main artillery rifle with experience and with two shots to the cockpit, canopy shattering, the Republican mech was out of the game.

Gozaburo wasn't ever really big on prisoners anyway.

The alarm blared sharply, Yugi twisted the artillery as he turned and let loose without a second thought. Hesitation didn't work. Restraint and skill worked but hesitation got you killed. Unfortunately it wasn't Katsuya his bullets found but that was a possibility. With the safety protocols off his mech wouldn't distinguish between enemy and friendly units. Yugi didn't care. The time it took the computer to tell them apart was a lag. Yugi could tell with or without it if anything it was just a crutch for the rookies.

"_Hey!_" The radio sizzled. "_Why don't you pick on someone your own size?_"

Ding ding! Enter the challenger!

"Cause they don't exist!" Yugi laughed, flicking the sight for the electric pulse laser back up as he locked in on where the brazen signal was coming from. What did you know, the Z6 dragon mech, could it be?

"_I'm asking you formally to withdraw or there will be no mercy!_" The Lieutenant rallied boldly his cockpit cam feed flickering up into a window on Yugi's main vid screen. Oh yes, found him, Atem Horakhty wanted to play tag.

"_Mercy?_" Yugi laughed slamming the laser command as the charge pinged up full. "Where have you been?"

Yugi had to hand it to him the Republican moved fast. Atem turned his boosters just right, made sure the rollers didn't lock, and sure enough swerved his mech out of disaster with a skill that showed most clearly in that moment of panicked survival instinct. Yugi's stomach jumped up, excitement bubbling, as he realized that maybe the war hero wannabe could be a legitimate challenge. He'd been sorely lacking in decent competition after all. Still Atem's dodge was fractionally clumsy, part of the mech singed by the laser but those stragglers hiding behind Atem highlighted just how bad it could've been if the man had been a second slower.

Yugi kicked his own throttle. He wasn't going to lay off hero boy here for a second. Sharks were in the water, blood had been spilt and Yugi was hungry to trash this chivalrous little fucker right back to his country cradle in a wooden box. Then they'd see who the Republicans would try to idolize as their newest barrack legend.

"Don't ask to play if you can't cut it pretty boy!" Yugi warned as the other slid between his fellows to try and put some space between them.

Idiot seemed to think that Yugi would try and swerve round them to follow him. Not at all, rather, Yugi took the opportunity to ram, charge, right into the fodder ducking the mech a little lower to hit the chest regions and knock the mechs off their feet to toss across the ground hard. Yugi heard Atem swear, inhaling sharply, over the radio now he had locked onto the sound of his voice well enough to distinguish it from the rest of the screaming.

Yugi had his tail, switched course right and when the Republican pivoted to try and face him with the cannons of the Z6 he found Yugi up close and personal, almost upon him, right before Yugi tugged at the reserve lever overhead. The claws of the mech dug, latching, into the chest of Atem's Z6 and working fast as the Republican tried to struggle out of the hold Yugi's body moved with years of vicious, ruthless, competence. Atem was in a bear trap, too close to fire his cannons without missing or else hurting himself in the recoil but Yugi conversely had a second option.

The claws locked in the Z6 flared to life at Yugi's command sending thirty thousand volts of raw electric charge shooting through the metal form of Atem's unit. He heat would've played havoc with the systems of the computer on board, Yugi knew the Republican was blind know with the vid feed cut to the cockpit and worse the internal damage to the more delicate but crucial systems would be horrible. He didn't stop there though. When the shock died Yugi revved the thrust with the advantage he had, Atem struggling without any view, and slammed the mech hard tossing it down into the earth.

He heard the man scream. The cockpit fractured and frame broken Atem was out of the game. There was no way the mech could get back up and if the Republican was still alive, Yugi grinned, he was not going to be so handsome any more that was for sure.

* * *

(Track- Tchaikovsky _The Nutcracker Overture)_

Yugi returned looking far too happy for Yami's tastes but then maiming a hapless enemy solider was apparently one of those little joys in life. Frankly Yami found it admirable that a mass murdering loco like Motou still took the time to appreciate the small pleasures of his profession. It showed such spirited positivity. It should've been comforting that at least the Prince's laser concoction worked but then Yami remembered they'd entrusted it to Yugi Motou and all his personal satisfaction faded. What next? Would they be picking up recruits from the mental health clinic?

"What are you doing up here anyway Motou?" The Minister grumbled from his seat in the Emperor's private viewing box. "I would've thought you'd been in the competition."

"Just the Emperor's procession," Yugi shrugged slapping down ungracefully into a plush armchair beside him, shaking the champagne on the side table as he inspected his nails. "They don't want me to compete this year. It fucks with the betting."

"Hmm," Yami snorted, "I suppose that was a private request from the Emperor?"

"Duh," Motou chuckled, "he can't win big from the betting if there's already a set winner and the mech tournament attracts all the best money."

"I heard Mokuba's competing this year." He sighed leaning back into his seat primly. He did so dislike making conversation but rather he engaged with Motou or Kaiba than call upon the attention of a fellow member of the ministry while they mingled here in the VIP box.

"All very hush-hush," Yugi nodded, sitting sideways in the seat hooking one leg over the other and crossing his arms as he watched totally ignorant of how he shoved his boots at Yami. "Kaiba won't tell me if he outfitted his mech or not. Should be good."

"Do you think he'll win?" Yami was a reasonably competent judge of military skill but Yugi was the combat specialist here. Half the ministers would've already consulted him about who to bet on and, already sequestered by the Emperor's loyalty, Yugi probably would've lied.

"Depends," Motou eluded. "I'll know after the first match. If nothing else it'll be hilarious to see a Prince get trounced."

"Yes, I'm sure," he sighed morosely.

"Are you going to bet Minister?"

"Of course not," Yami grumbled messaging his temple, "it's immature."

"You ever feel like your frigid ass is going to keel over from boredom?" Yugi teased with whip like brutality making the Minister rankle.

"I'll remind you Motou," he warned, "that while we may not be on duty I am still-"

"My big brother?" The pilot grinned wickedly. "While we're off duty, at stuff like this, we're supposed to play _Happy Royal Family _aren't we Sennen?"

Yami hissed into his palm and tried very hard to censor himself from what immediately wanted to vacate his mouth. One day he would find a reason to laugh very loudly at Yugi Motou and it would be magical. His little withered heart would grow three sizes that day.

"Where's Kaiba anyway?"

"The Crown Prince is arriving later after he disposes with official business." The Minister answered. Damn Seto had an excuse to get out of all this posturing and fodder of smiling at cameras between the opening ceremonies. Given half a chance Yami would've faked an international incident to escape.

"Lucky bastard," Yugi cackled with all his usual restraint.

"You're awfully peppy today," Yami signed, "drown any puppies recently?"

"Thought about it but they're not in season." The pilot shot back unapologetically.

It was almost depressing Yami couldn't find a civilian to match his wit verbatim with such effortless skill. If Motou's sense of pitch black humour had been the cloak of a much more enjoyable individual Yami might've acted upon any inklings of physical attraction. As he stood he seemed doomed to die bitter and unsociable. The Capital's courtiers were too manipulative to entrust with something like a sexual fling given the precarious nature of Sennen's position and how he could be blackmailed. As for the civilians they were too romantic, too unjaded, and too insufferable really in Yami's impatient experience.

Then again it took years to master the stark, unapologetic, nastiness the royal family perpetuated under Gozaburo's patron ship. The fact Yugi, Yami and Seto were such seething balls of sarcasm was no great surprise. The fact none of them drank, whored or smoked heavily was.

"So where's your ass kisser and his fag hag?" Yugi pondered allowed. "I thought Igor followed you everywhere."

"If you're referring to General Mahado and my secretary they're back at the Palace." He replied contemptuously. "Where are your toys?"

"Off in the stands." Motou grinned. "I told them they had to pay their own admission if they wanted to come."

"I must say," Yami snorted, "one day very soon you'll out asshole yourself if you're not careful."

"Don't want to peak too soon do I?"

Yugi grinned leaning his cheek into his knuckles to gaze at Yami over his knees and really the little punk was lucky he was so good at what he did or else the army and the ministry would've tossed him out of his ass without a friend in the world. Did Motou know that? Know that if he wasn't careful then one day it would be his head on the chopping block? Maybe that was why he was so insufferable. Go big or go home while he had it Yami supposed and to a degree he could understand.

One day, after all, the Emperor might decide that Sennen was a dangerous liability and make him disappear just like Noah. Yami assumed he was reasonably safe so long as he showed such little ambition and didn't bear any heirs but there was always a chance. Gozaburo had been increasingly paranoid as he aged.

"Sennen," oh lord not Crump, the Minister for Finance was detestably boring. "How are things this with you this fine morning?"

"Glorious," he smiled tightly, his face wasn't really fashioned for such expressions. "And yourself Crump?"

"As well as can be expected in this weather," he sighed. "I was just telling Leichter the catering has slipped this year. Don't you agree?"

"I wouldn't know," Yami chuckled, it was the safest course of option after his plan A which was to throttle the little whimpering vagabond.

"Always focusing on more important matters I'm sure," Crump nodded solemnly as if it was their shared great burden. Load of bullocks. "Who will you be betting on this year then Minister? You're the expert."

"Mokuba of course, one must show support," he lied fluently. "Motou is perhaps the best adviser if you wish solely to profit however."

"I'm sure!" He chuckled glancing over to Yugi at Yami's diversion. "Shame you're not out there this year eh Motou? I think having someone to put the fear of God in the competitors is almost essential you know."

"Not this year," Yugi smiled contorting his face with the same unnatural discomfort Yami did, "I got bored of winning. More contest on the battle field."

"Of course," Crump nodded patting Yami's shoulder conspiratorially, "I envy you Sennen. I wish I had someone like Motou to throw round at my accountants some days."

"I'm a lucky man," Yami smiled politely, "not everyone gets to work so closely with family and war is such a personal matter. It's hard to escape a sense of camaraderie."

Yugi laughed, almost as if he was teasing Yami for being so sentimental but when they locked eyes with those gooey fake smiles the Minister utterly understood why Yugi Motou was laughing. Yami almost heard his soft little voice perk: _'that was so lame I'm about to vomit'_.

* * *

(Track- Tchaikovsky _Flower Waltz_)

Mokuba did not allow Seto to outfit his mech with anything special but he did allow the royal flourish to be played when he entered the ring to the excitement of a dazzled crowd. At twenty three he was a smart boy, a devoted and educated pacifist, but not even he was immune from cultural pressure. Mechs, warfare, were the central order of the Kaiba family. What he identified as his most immediate family were intimately embroiled in combat: Yami led the army, Kaiba developed their weapons, Yugi won their battles… Gozaburo expected it and Mokuba, never the sort, felt however it went against the grain of his character that he had to contribute.

His first two matches went very well, delightfully surprised Gozaburo had laughed, clapped, shouted a toast… which of course only made the old satyr grumble louder when Mokuba embarrassed him by taking a damaging hit early on. Still Yami had been rather startled himself. Yugi had leant forward in his seat, straightened even to sit properly, and leaning his elbows into his thighs had watched intently.

The pair of them had been steely with new interest. Yami found his own form hunching in, entranced, and gazing out the viewing window into the packed arena at the blood sport they started mumbling. Really Yugi Motou was the only one with enough military experience to properly appreciate a battle.

"Not a bad hook," Yami found he was whispering. "He's manipulating his throttle carefully to decrease his turning time."

"No…" Yugi mumbled, eyes never wavering though the pupils darted over details not even the Minister could catch. "His footing is uneven. If he keeps spinning he's going to stack it in the right corner."

"Right corner?" The Minister proposed examining the spot and realizing the implication: "Ah!"

Yugi's eyes flickered over him. They understood each other. Yami would've congratulated the younger man for spotting it if he'd liked him better. Mokuba had used his dexterity and speed in the last two matches to counteract his weaknesses but the basic instability in his footing which came with inexperience would cost him. The mechs had by now been tearing up the earth of the arena all morning, the muddy and bloody had been sprayed down in the far right corner. If Mokuba wandered too close to it with that sloppy leg work the whole world was going to come out from underneath him.

It was paralysing to watch a good fight. Yami saw the flaws, Yugi saw three times as many, it was as if they knew the end of the story and waiting wanted to see if the players could figure it out and save themselves. Part of Yami, the less sour part which was occasionally like a human being, hoped Mokuba won while the rest of him was too detached to be anything but curious. He wasn't great at investing.

"He's working him left…" Yami mumbled as Mokuba lashed out against his opponent.

"He's being herded," Yugi countered quietly, "the enemy isn't that clumsy. He dodged plenty of better hits in his last match. Mokuba's being led like a dog by the nose…"

"How do you know?" The Minister perked curiously.

"Recognize the paint work." Yugi answered never wavering over the opposing unit Mokuba was pitted against. How Yugi could recall any insignia in some sixty match contest Yami put down to genuine skill. "It's hideous."

Yami sighed, leaning back, that threw him. Not concerning Motou, god no, the fact the young man has some sense of a colour palate was irrelevant. Just, really, it reminded him that at times like this Yami would've rather been home repainting the lounge. The few vacations he scourged tended to turn into DIY redecorations of his home. Call him a poncy homosexual cliché but he didn't like being hounded by cameras at a beach when he was way past his glory days of shirtless-ness and he had a penchant for interior design. So sue him he was classy. He was proud enough to accept that and masculine enough to never admit it in public.

When was his last proper vacation? Not just the damnable public holidays the Emperor demanded they take off. Yami hated Christmas, bloody disaster, asked himself every year why he couldn't scrap the whole proceeding. Charity was expected, kindness was a given, and the whole fucking world was supposed to stop because some wench had dropped a calf in a barn a few thousand years ago? Nonsense! Soulless Grinch of the office he didn't like that he was hogtied forcibly from his desk for a minimum of three days after spending the preceding twelve listening to news outlet mommies complain their little Johnny wasn't home for the holiday. Worse the soldiers expected a holiday on the line because, oh yes, the spirit of giving really fit in amongst shiny new artillery.

Alright he was raving, he centred himself, when was his last proper vacation? It was a bit flushed from his mind. It must've been three years ago when he _wasn't_ thirty. He missed that. He felt old.

"_Nhn!_" Yugi moaned burying his face in his hands, disgusted and ashamed, when Mokuba preformed a stupendous muddy backflip worked into a carefully laid trap by his opponent.

Fucking twenty year old firm and plush Motou Yami rued. Oh right the duel! He surveyed the field. Mokuba had lost, unsurprisingly, and sighing he binned that hope. It wasn't too unexpected. The Prince wasn't built for this sort of thing he just didn't have the girt for it. That decided Yami sunk solemnly back and straight faced, the image of composed authority, resumed reconfiguring his furniture mentally. Nothing smelt better than fresh paint. Really though sometimes he wondered why the media thought he was some kind of indomitable never ending militant man to the core. He could care less if they won the beach from the Republicans. He wanted a backrub. He'd sell military secrets for a backrub and/or the occasional well mixed drink.

He honestly considered abusing his authority as Minister for Defence to demand Motou fetch him something highly ethanol based.

"Yugi!" Gozaburo snapped, fierce after Mokuba's embarrassing defeat, trying to turn the attention to another of his successful wards instead as quickly as possible. "Fetch us a drink will you dear boy? Come tell your old man who to bet on!"

Damn, beaten to the punch. Yami would have to surrender Motou, what a shame, he snorted. Where was Mahado when he needed him?

"Sir, my sincerest apologies for the delay, I-"

Ah, there he was, time to get inebriated.

As they said: it was noon _somewhere._

* * *

(Track- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Soundtrack_ He Who Must Not Be Named_)

The fuck was that ugly thing? Now the Minister knew that machines weren't necessarily meant to be visually appealing but truthfully this had to be the most hideous composite of wires and electrified cells he'd ever seen through a viewing window.

"Explain this to me." He ordered blankly, huffing with a displeasure which set the little lab-rat on edge, as he flipped through the folder in his hands before him and glanced to the monstrosity.

"That is the external armour for the core to connect its synapses to the rest of the mechanism." The little man doddered anxiously.

"That's the EA?" Yami scoffed. "That's massive. How big's the core of this thing going to be?"

"We've just finished growing it," he chimed a little more excitedly, "it's in tank C if you would like to inspect it Minister?"

"How big are you intending to make this unit?" Sennen pressed impatiently.

"With the Crown Prince's help and the Emperor's blessing we intend to make it approximately a hundred and twenty four meters from wing tip to wing tip-"

"You've got to be kidding me," he laughed breathlessly, "between this and the EX0D1A project you people will bankrupt our steel industry! Tell me, will this giant paper weight have any defining features apart from the exuberant cost?"

"Sir!" He twittered in a panic. "The AI we've worked into the core is incredibly advanced. It's out preforming the seventh generation systems and it's not even fully developed yet! The Crown Prince himself is supervising the weapons manufacturing and, if I can say so myself, it is considerably larger than the EX0D1A."

Yes well EX0D1A project only wanted to make their super weapon four meters up and a metre and a half across. They weren't trying to build a walking skyscraper. Suddenly the whole EX0D1A project seemed less ridiculous in comparison to this nonsense.

"What are we tagging this?"

"The Z0-RC."

"If this giant trashcan doesn't work," Yami warned, "if it's useless. Then so help me I will melt it down and repurpose it into hubcaps along with your career. As for this," he flapped the folder jutting it at the viewing window, "I don't want to hear about your AI till you've got something solid to show me. Don't waste my time. I assure you I won't hesitate to cut the funding, whatever the Emperor might've told you, especially if the EX0D1A outclasses you in practicality and performance."

"Sir!"

"Make it work."

* * *

(Track- Emilie Autumn _God Help Me_)

Desert combat was messy. The terrain was always changing, the mechs clogged with sand, the vid screens lost focus awkwardly. Yugi loved the privilege of exploiting and compensating against that force of nature which rivalled his own. If anything the sand helped. The boys had enabled him to locate and encircle a Bohemian reserve group in the ruins of a long abandoned outpost who, Yugi guessed, had been hoping to attack one of the nearby Imperial bases with some Guerrilla warfare. Unfortunately they'd never get the chance.

Yugi however found himself a nice little surprise as they stormed the unsuspecting troops panicking to reach their mechs. Some ponce in a red bipedal mech, a similar structure to Yugi's own, reached his cockpit without being shot down in Katsuya's artillery fire hazing the earth and kicking the throttle had shot at Ryuji and Hitoro like a bat out of hell.

Yugi's comrades swore, leapt back on their rollers rockily and watching the mech slide from a nearby rooftop Yugi realized the truth of it, grinning viciously, while Hitoro tried not to piss his pants.

"Take him out!" Yugi ordered, laughing, flipping up his sight. "He doesn't have ammunition loaded!"

It was obvious. With considerable means to keep beneficial distance between himself and Yugi's comrades the brave little soldier in the red mech wasn't using them. As a matter of fact he seemed to ignore any punches that dealt damage to the guns as Ryuji made point strikes. The Republicans must've been prepping for the strike on the base and caught with their pants down their crimson buddy found himself without any bullets. Yugi considered their mission might be quicker than expected.

With that assured the Republicans, unable to deny the fact, were suddenly trying to run. Reinvigorated however Ryuji, Hitoro and Katsuya were taking the stride to lay waste to them. It was almost unfair. The crimson mech however was still holding ground even if he was forced to dodge their heavier assaults.

Could it be? Yugi laughed. Little fucker wouldn't die!

"Hey Atem!" He hollered over the radio. "Back for more hero? Having fun pant less?"

"_I don't need bullets to beat someone like you!_"

This guy needed his own comic book or maybe he'd just spent his childhood reading to many. Still, if that was his dream death scenario, Yugi was compelled to give it to him.

"Bring it!" He offered, brain swelling with endorphins at the prospect of a ballsy guy like Atem Horakhty who had proven his capabilities to take a hit.

Yugi left the roof, hit the ground as the electric pulse laser pinged charged and letting it off lost sent dust, sand and rubble crashing into the air. Atem turned tail down a back street of the outpost and leaving the rest to the dirty work they'd make quick business of Yugi gave chase. He often had to be the predator in these conflicts. Few men stood to fight anymore and without gunfire Atem had been forced to take a turn looking for something to defend himself with as Yugi gave chase.

* * *

1 Horakhty- the God of Light from the last season of YGO seemed the perfect last name for Atem.  
2 Hope you enjoyed the tracks!

Have a good week guys. You do not want to miss chapter three I promise~


	3. Chapter 3

Hope you all had a fabulous week. Sorry this is up late Google forgot what fanfiction was last night for some reason. It was like the sight didn't exist!

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

(Track- _Destination Unknown_ by Alex Gaudino)

When he found the red mech Atem had made do in a perilously dangerous fashion. Left with little time and few options the Republican had ripped steel from the buildings and depending upon what he'd recovered seemed to think two steel poles were going to be contest for Yugi.

Oh well…

Yugi was lurched back, cockpit rocking, and heart rate soaring found himself suddenly in a very interesting position. Atem was using the rods like swords. _Well_. Yugi, who had been trained in the deployment of every weapon under the sun, knew that to use a sword of any kind was difficult let alone trying to manipulate a mech to do so. Yet Atem obviously must've had some experience because he swung them with extreme confidence as Yugi darted round him. Where had the Republicans found this guy? Where could Yugi get one for rainy days?

"Oh!" He cackled. "You're fun!"

"_And you're a murderer!_"

"That's my name," Yugi snorted disarming one of the rods from Atem with a flourish to dig in at him close as the Bohemian tried to rediscover his stance with the weight change, "don't wear it out."

Atem brought up the remaining steel to block Yugi's claws, crunching back into his stance under the force, a leg came out with amazing dexterity to push Yugi back and as Atem changed arms Yugi didn't give him a second to breathe. Yugi came in high and in a frenzied second Atem shot low-

_CRUNCH  
_

Warning lights starting flaring, sirens beeping, on Yugi's screens. Suddenly they both rocked, jolting, locked with their gears grinding against each other. Yugi lost his breath, smacked in his harness at the impact and realized that they were jammed. The tip of Kaiba's electric pulse laser sat on Yugi's shoulder section, holding them apart, while Atem's makeshift pipe sword dug its tip into the lower torso of Yugi's mech.

Atem's shoulder armour was shattered under the unyielding tip of the laser, Yugi's side was ruptured by the tip of the steel pipe and it occurred to the Imperial suddenly that they were trapped in a stalemate. Atem needed them in close to win by driving that lance home, Yugi needed space to fire the pulse laser without the recoil damaging his own unit, they were stuck.

Atem chuckled, breathless from his own impact, over the radio.

Yugi might _lose_.

He saw red.

Yugi Motou did _not_ lose.

The heart rate monitor feeding in from his combat suit to the system of the mech started to flash a warning popup in his far right screen as Yugi regarded the red mech grinding up against his front screen. This fucker might beat him. No one beat him.

Yugi twisted in his hardness, vicious, and shut down the safety protocols. That done he started charging…

"_What are you doing?_" Atem baulked handsome face appearing in his screen. "_You can't fire that thing! At this distance you'll damage yourself!_"

"Watch me!" Yugi threated.

"_That's crazy!_" The Republican shot, eyes flashing. Their situation escalating this was now a game of chicken.

If Atem pulled back to try and escape he would lose. If Yugi fired at this range he might destroy them both. Would the Republican back down? Would Yugi go kamikaze or was the Imperial just planning on forcing his hand?

The laser pinged, charged, and inhaling they considered each other for a second.

"_You won't,_" Atem challenged, decisive but perhaps not totally so.

Yugi would rather die than lose.

"Let's hope this hurts you a hell of a lot more than it hurts me." Yugi seethed smacking the command.

Atem's face contorted in his vision before rapturous light overwhelmed them both. If the Republican lived, if Yugi lived, then they would've learnt not to underestimate each other.

* * *

(Track- _Pan's Labyrinth Lullaby_)

Why was Yami Sennen listed as Yugi Motou's next of kin? Did the boy really have no one else to bother? And how in Christ's name had the little monster gotten his mobile number to give to medics?

"We recovered the electric pulse laser in good shape," Mahad sighed darkly, "his Majesty the Crown Prince assures me it can be remounted and deployed after only minor repairs. The mech was unsalvageable however."

Elbows on the desk, fingers laced, Yami rested his forehead against his crossed index fingers and rued it.

"The Bohemian?"

"We can't say for sure if he survived. His ejected seat wasn't recovered by the elites."

"And Motou?"

"He disabled the safety protocols. The emergency eject didn't activate. It's miraculous he managed to switch it himself in time." Mahado shrugged weakly. "He's heavily sedated at the Royal Hospital but he's alive."

"How injured?"

"Nothing irreparable: blood loss, minor burns, scarring…" He shuffled through the papers. "It could've been much worse."

Yes, Yami might've had to sit through and give a speech at a televised state funeral Gozaburo would've used to rally the troops with while he fished for replacements.

"Anything else?"

"His doctors tell me they would like your permission to keep him sedated." Mahado continued carefully. "Apparently he tried to leave the ward and re-opened the wounds. They're unable to reason with him. They would like to keep him on a drip under the morphine till they can release him."

"Go right ahead." Yami snorted, least Motou hadn't lost his spirit, what on earth had the young man been thinking pulling a stunt like that?

* * *

(Track- _Pan's Labyrinth Music Box_)

It may as well have been Motou's ghost who let himself unceremoniously into the Minister's office three days later. Mana had long since learnt her lesson trying to hold the pilot back and when his door was shoved open these days Yami just sort of _assumed_ he had the company of his favourite vagabond.

Motou looked like death warmed up. He'd hidden whatever wounds he must've still had, whatever stitching was holding his cold mechanical innards in, under another tight uniform that rolled off that deliciously, enviably, lithe body. Slick black over his navel, down his arms, little silver buttoned three quarter blue jacket round his chest, long high boots strapped to his thighs. Someone escaping death wasn't supposed to appear neatly presented but all the exhausted ire showed more in the pallid, gaunt, face than the well-disguised wounds.

"I want to be re-deployed." He opened with.

"Do you outrank me these days?" The Minister quirked almost threating. "I hadn't been told."

"I respectfully request permission to be re-deployed Minister." Yugi returned immediately, dully, eyes sharp and fingers tense.

Oh now that was frightening…

"I can't deploy you Motou," Sennen wavered fractionally gentler as he folded the file on his desk and leant back, "we're still outfitting your new advanced model. It's going to take a few more days. Besides you recovery time isn't up."

Motou was picky about models, had to be properly painted with his insignia. Yami almost mentioned it but somehow he thought if he gave the impression the paint was all that was left drying the pilot might find and steal the machine from the hangar. Yami didn't like the look in his eyes. The indigo was a bit too dark. This storm was going to get bigger was it?

"What are you giving me?" He prodded.

"Something new," Yami shrugged, waving dismissively. "I don't have the specks in front of me. You'll have to acclimatize yourself to it."

"Fine," and then he was turning. _Leaving_ Yami realized a little flabbergasted.

What? No snappy quip? No dreadful insult to Yami's masculinity? No shouting tantrum? Would Gozaburo complain if he tried to ship Atem Horakhty's family a medal…?

If Atem Horakhty was not currently in a wooden box Yami Sennen theorised he very shortly would wish he was.

* * *

(Track- _River Flows in You_ by Yiruma use a music box version)

"_Ow fuck!_" He hissed, hands digging into the sides of the gurney as he tried not to buck up and kick with those stupidly thick boots of his. Ma always taught him not to kick a lady, especially not when she a pair of pliers pulling at your wounds.

"Oh stop it!" Doctor Kujaku spat. "This is why you shouldn't be out there fighting with old wounds you great lummox. You're going to get yourself fucking killed."

Atem slapped back against the gurney, panting, as dunking the tweezers in the sterile solution to strip them of the softly ebbing blood Mai started railing again. He'd gotten out of the fight better than he had his last encounter with Yugi Motou, which was merciful, but he was nothing if not considerably shaken.

"Who the fuck challenges Yugi Motou to one on one combat with two drain pipes and no bullets?" She raved. "Scattershot backwater brainless oath…"

"Someone has to hold him back," Atem sighed gravely.

"Oh don't give me that duty _shit _of yours." She grunted. Hard woman Mai, he respected her regardless of if he approved of her bedside manner. "You want to lose your other eye? Cause next time he's going to pull your intestines out through your nostrils."

"I don't doubt it," he chuckled weakly as he regarded the ceiling, "seriously though… You should've seen it. I've never seen anything like that… He just… he was willing to destroy himself to win. Why would anyone…?"

"No one would," Mai grunted, "that's why Motou's the best. He's nuts and serves you right for expecting a tornado to act like a reasonable human being. You really think some guy who's killed thousands of people has a healthy sense of survival instinct intact?"

"I just…" he strained. "I don't know. It was insane. You should've heard him. He didn't even sound scared. He might've _died."_

"Again, I come back to," Kujaku husked, "you're an idiot."

"Maybe…" He relented with a grin which quickly soured. "I can't let someone like that keep going. Not if we're ever going to end this godforsaken war. Least now I know not to underestimate him."

"I ought to tell command to lock you in a padded cel-"

Whatever Mai had intended to say was probably a gem of maternal wisdom Atem seriously needed but Critias beat her to the punch when he came barging through the flapping folds of the med tent. Not a lot of Republican infrastructure out here, that was for sure, the asses up in Cyprus kept bombing whenever Bohemia tried to use to get a foothold in the desert line.

"Atem, thank God." He chimed. "They were a bit hazy in HQ about if you were alive or not."

"Nope," he snorted cringing as he shuffled onto his elbows, "still alive. Heaven doesn't feel this shit."

"Well good, we still need you down here," he snorted. "What about the rest of the unit?"

"Only got four of them back even close to one piece." Atem rued. "That's twelve dead."

Critias sighed, Kujaku busied herself if only to stop from shouting and flopping back he exhaled against his forehead. They were losing recruits, conscription was inevitable and then he'd have to tell more people their kids weren't coming home. Hell Atem might not have liked some of his team for this mission, Keith and Underwood in particular, but that didn't mean he wanted any of them lost in the sand.

"Who _did_you get home?"

"Raphael," Atem shrugged counting off, "Valon, Alister…"

"That's not so bad at least," Critias attempted to console blandly.

"But HQ sent you all the way out here to check on me?" He snorted dismissively pawing one of his bruised shoulders.

"Oh more than that," Critias warned, "you've caused a stir Lieutenant. The President and the Secretary for Defence want to give you the new mech they've got in classified development _and_ a medal."

"Why?" Atem grumbled. "I didn't kill him."

"You did more than we've managed to do in four years." He shrugged. "They're putting faith on you, throwing it all in now, we've tried almost everything else and we're losing."

"Yeah well between Pegasus and Sennen I know who's the better strategist." Kujaku hissed softly.

"They wanted me to escort you back to the Capital." Critias ignored awkwardly after a brisk cough. Never good with women.

"What's the mech?"

"Something called the EY-3," he murmured, "I don't know much else but they promised me they'll paint it red."

"Ha!"

* * *

(Track- _Simple and Clean_ by Utada Hikaru use Music Box version)

The paradox of scheduled phone calls for the purpose of receiving military progress reports from secret or elite units like Motou was that Yami could see nothing. It was both a blessing and a curse but more than once these past ten years he had found it incredible merciful that the rest of the military circle couldn't just listen in to some of their more memorable conversations.

"Where are you?" He repeated into the handset, trying to type at exactly the same time, fucking static.

"In Merona," Motou answered back loudly.

"What are you doing in Merona?" He snapped, pausing, one could only pray that after three weeks Motou hadn't miraculously discovered Atem Horakhty out along the line which he was currently, Yami checked the map, a good couple of miles east of.

"Venting," not even a pause of hesitation.

"_Pardon?_" Yami called back. "What about Ryuji, Hitoro and Katsuya?"

"Long story, won't be on the news," Yugi dismissed. "Hitoro and Ryuji are tarping the mechs."

"Where's Katsuya?"

"Lost him."

"Lost him?"

"That an echo?" Motou teased.

"I need you in the _other direction._" Yami sighed abandoning his keyboard.

"We'll be there for the rally call."

"With Katsuya?" He snorted.

"Check back on me for that," he cackled, "anything else Minister?"

"Yes," he snapped, "explain to me what you are _doing in Merona?"_

"S-_chxzk_-ry Minister," he managed, "yo-_ckkaz_- cutti-_ haakz_- out! F-_huzzzck_- receptio- _chzzk_-!"

"Of course I am." He sagged. "Don't cause any trouble you can't cover!"

"Got it Minister," Yugi snickered, suddenly very clear again of course. "Call you again at the rally point."

At least he was feeling better.

* * *

(Track- Pachelbel's _Canon in D_)

Yami was quite concerned his eyes were going to fall out of his head. The Emperor was throwing himself, as well as a great deal of money, behind this Z0-RC project. It was speeding along past the EX0D1A but Yami, personally, saw more potential for success in the latter than the former. Nonetheless the Emperor wanted his massive toy so the Minister would have to supervise it. It had meant a three am start this morning to visit the outer city limits where the only laboratory big enough to develop the damn thing was located.

Yami must've spent three hours exploring the details of the damn thing in a hazmat suit. Try as they might the various technicians, scientists and engineers seemed to be struggling with the core of the beast. Massive construct, sustaining a huge mech meant an enormous power source which wielded an incredible advanced AI. Unfortunately the damn thing was also invasively, intensely, radioactive. How they were going to get anyone, even Motou, to pilot something which was in a constant nuclear state was mystifying. If they didn't solve that problem then essentially the Emperor would've funded a radioactive skyscraper sized paperweight.

By noon Yami could've cared less about developmental machinery. He woke at five am almost every day but three am was ridiculous. He might as well have not slept at all and frankly the Emperor didn't pay him enough to put up with Ministerial shit as was let alone in these conditions.

"_Argh_…"

"Minister?" Mahado murmured, taken aback, as Yami threw his boots upon the desk and sunk back in his seat. "Should I continue…?"

"Go on," he ordered, fumbling his hand onto the desk. "Mana!"

"_Yes Sir?_" She chirped over the intercom.

"Mocha, now," he grunted gesturing again to a fumbling general. "Well go on. Don't let me stop you. You want anything?"

"Uh…" he coughed primly, "no Minister."

"_Coming right up Sir!_"

"Then?"

"Uh!" Mahado was so easy to fluster in the oddest ways and yet utterly immovable in others. "All three Delta missions were successful at least to some extent. Motou's unit pushed the line back at least five clicks. The remaining two not so much but three clicks and one click are still successful in the overall effort."

"What slowed them down?"

"The Republicans have a new mech. The EY-3 piloted by Atem Horakhty."

"So he's still alive then," Yami sighed, "Motou will be overjoyed."

"He held us back." Mahado confirmed. "It's not the most advanced machine but he uses it well. It gave the Republicans something to resist with if not to assure a victory. We outnumbered them too greatly."

"I don't like it." He pondered. "The war hero is turning out to be more trouble than I would like. They keep this up they'll start gaining back some patriotism. See if intelligence can start tracking him. I think he needs and ambush."

"Yes Minister," he dodged a little, clipboard slapping against his chest as throwing the door open Mana strode in unapologetically.

He never quite knew what to say with Mana poor chap. All he could manage was to exchange stiff pleasantries while Mana gave off that faultless ballsy confidence of hers.

"Thank you Mana," Yami murmured taking the mug. "Anything else General?"

"Motou's unit is back today for their servicing."

"He's reporting to me later I assume?"

"Yes Minister."

"Lovely," he grunted, taking a stiff swig. "Alright then, thank you Mahado you can go."

"He's been…" The General muttered hesitantly. "Sir, Motou has been… very productive lately. Efficient."

"That's nothing new."

"Yes, but it's my understanding he's been cooperating surprisingly well with his inferiors and better with his superiors…"

"What?" Yami twitched. "_No._"

"He's still _himself,_" Mahado clarified carefully, "but he's been less _insidious_lately."

"I'll be damned," the Minister snorted in disbelief, "he must want something. Maybe we really ought to employ Horakhty. Get back to me on that before we assassinate the man. If Motou will play nice to go fight him I might keep him alive a little while longer."

"I'll keep you updated Sir."

* * *

(Track- _I Was Born to Die With You_ by Allstar Weekend)

How many times had they been in this damn office? Yugi snorted and readjusted his uniform as he slunk through the door and kicked it closed. He didn't have an official uniform as such but considering he'd been in almost every part of the army at some point or another in the original shuffling during his first year he had plenty of uniforms. These days he mismatched them. They were the only things he owned outside combat suits for the mech and gym gear. Just the same way the Minister didn't seem to own anything outside a procession of dark suits.

The Minister looked his age today, that was for sure, and Yugi found it bizarre to think his elder had ever had a sun kissed tan during his active duty days like the generals claimed. Sennen glanced up, brow raising, and finding Yugi with his hands in his pockets and his hips cocked the Minister turned back to his screen to continue typing for a moment.

Yugi didn't necessarily dislike Minister Sennen. Really if he disliked the man then he could've pushed his boundaries and ended up answering solely to the Emperor but he wasn't opposed to his condition. He and the older man didn't understand each other but then Yugi understood most people a great deal less than Minister Sennen. At least Yami Sennen seemed to comprehend to some degree how to handle him.

"Motou," he greeted in that graceful asshole kind of way he had. "I'm short on patience and time today. Anything I should know? Any disasters I need to throw money at?"

"Found Katsuya," Yugi shrugged, "other than that; I want to go to the coast."

"Vacation already?" He joked darkly.

"Atem Horakhty." He corrected. "So almost."

"Why the coast?" Yami Sennen posed carefully. "I have no Intel he'll be there."

"Instinct." Yugi shrugged. "I can tell from how they're moving their troops against ours. He's going to be near the Arch Tree Forest on the west coast. I know it."

"Then I'll get confirmation from my oracle on that," the Minister grunted, "until then you're pushing back the line. You'll get more orders in a few days after the servicing."

"No," Yugi sighed, "that's not going to fly. I don't need a fucking service. The mech's new and those grease monkeys are useless. Let me hit Arch Tree and I'll be back in seventy-two hours with a crimson mech skull."

"_No._" He repeated. "This isn't a democracy. Now get out."

"Oh you are foul today!" Yugi laughed. "Fine, I really might take that vacation then. I don't see any point deploying for bullshit."

"Are you telling me you plan to ignore a direct order?"

"Something like that."

"Then maybe until you feel like being less contemptuous we can arrange formal vacation quarters."

"Is that a threat Minister?" Yugi grinned.

"I'm not in the mood to argue with you." Sennen repeated darkly with emphasis. "I'm half past homicidal at the moment. So unless you really want to see the inside of the brig again you can take your immature ass back to the hangar. The world doesn't revolve around you Motou."

"_Ha!_"

Now that was sharp. Sennen looked darker now. That nasty temper of his earlier days breaking through from the realm of Yugi's distant memory and surprised, almost insulted, Yugi found himself on the cusp of something like anger but not quite. He was affronted, not really pissed off so to speak, because mingled with the insult was the satisfied glory that he'd pushed Sennen a little more and the marvel that someone had yelled at him properly for the first time in forever. Oh people yelled at him but not with real stark passion like _this_. This meant business. Yami Sennen sometimes made it very clear when he wasn't throwing idle threats it seemed.

Yugi nearly respected that but then he had a complicated sense of the Chain of Being in the universal order which sometimes amounted to a superiority complex. He laughed a little, not quite furious but energised with kinetic thrust. He wanted to get the last laugh, he always did and something so ballsy deserved such a response.

Yugi didn't think past his instinct in such circumstances. If his gut told him to do X then X he did. X usually meant he won, whatever it was, it was interchangeable like the subject of a sentence and finding the perfect fit for this scenario Motou found himself moving.

As he strode closer, brisk and sharp to the desk, Sennen pushed back his chair to stand and seemed prepared with those burning, sour, baggy eyes to defend himself against some kind of physical violence. Hands on the wood top he leant in and Yugi was quick to grab him hard by the scruff with both hands locked in one of those perfectly ironed white shirts.

The Minister withered a little, frozen solid, when Yugi burnt searing, nearly laughing, lips into the man's own. Yugi was pulsing with energy, teeth digging into the so often sneering bottom lip to really taste it as he tilted his face in and pushed their mouths into connection like wiring a circuit. He quite liked it really. There was something lusty in someone who didn't want to take his shit and would back up their bravado.

Laughing a second later Yugi shoved the Minister back by his shoulders, sending him tumbling hard into the chair, and pealing with cackles, grinning from ear to ear, Yugi began stepping back.

"Fine then!" He laughed though he wasn't entirely sure why. "Have it your way!"

He turned, shoulders looser, and perhaps he was mad but Yugi would be amused by the ruffled Minister all day for that courage. Atem would have to wait a little longer for pay back.

Yugi heard the clopping; one foot, then the other, but he hardly envisioned the possibility of a politician leaping their desk and hindered by that he didn't turn in time to stop the elder twisting his arm behind his back and slamming them both into the door hard. It rattled. Sennen's secretary must've assumed they were brawling.

"_Where do you think you're going?_"

"Oomph!" Yugi grunted, winded, "holy shit! For a retired soldier Sennen you can _move!_"

Lord Yugi knew men half the Minister's age who couldn't slam like that. What did you know? The old goat still had those skills locked up somewhere he just needed a little of that old temper to bring them out. Still Yugi wasn't at all put off, oh no, this was even better. Sennen had_ flipped_. He was now, quite dangerously, on Yugi's level. That was a victory.

"You're insufferable." The Minister snapped.

Grunting the man all but flipped Yugi, one hand locked tight in his collar, thrusting the pilot's shoulders back into the door and seemingly lost to his own frustrations or whatever else had wafted up Yami Sennen kissed back.

Yugi's inner electrics rocketed at the realization his own circuit was being returned, mimicked, with equal intensity. It wasn't affection or like or anything of the sort that made Yugi entangle him, arms up round the older man and dig his fingers into his hair with a purr. Rather Yugi's gut, which loved a challenge, responded to worthy challenges with fever. Atem Horakhty's battlefield contest merited an obsessive desire to destroy him in Yugi and now, forcing Yugi into submission, Yami Sennen's passionate dipping sexual temper stirred a responding lust driven by Yugi's nature.

Something had broken. Years of nasty, snappy, distaste had bubbled up and over from fury immediately into passion because of Yugi's directing it to that cue. Yugi hadn't intended for a response, hadn't planned this, but Sennen once ignited was as bad as he was and, finally it seemed, they'd set each other off irrevocably.

Yugi let their lips mash wet, hot, teeth knocking and scrapping, digging, at each other. Sennen thrust his tongue, coiling, into Yugi's mouth and moaning low in the back of his throat Yugi's fingers twisted tighter in the man's hair. He was reaching up on his toes into the Minister, dragging the bigger body down though it hardly needed prompting, nails curling round one side of Sennen's neck to dig into the opposing shoulder of his suit. Yugi never did give a fuck about propriety.

He hefted one leg up against the Minister's hip and when bigger hands dipped down Yugi found both his thighs wrenched apart and up round the older man. The motion bounced him in Sennen's arms, squirmed him up the door, and with infectious molten heat brought their hips together. Yugi moaned, throwing his head back hard into the wood of the creaking door, arching his spine to fuse them into each other with more friction on impulse. Sennen rasped hoarse, head falling down till face buried in Yugi's neck he swore open mouthed with his hands firm on the underside of the pilot's thighs.

"_Fuck!_" Yugi hissed, burning, semi-senseless.

Whatever was happening was getting worse. He'd never exactly fathomed them as a pair with repressed sexual tension of any description but overwhelmed-_ fuck_- Yugi was increasingly stirred to the razor edge of breathless.

Yugi ran his palm over Sennen's cheek, forcing the Minister's face back up to kiss him again with the same bruising force. He wanted this man to make him ache. He wanted to be bruised and sore and tender. Sennen certainly didn't seem to mind, quite the opposite, growling against his lips in a low stream of expletives the noble Minister seemed to want to ruin Yugi just as bad, just as _hard_, till both of them almost broke.

Yami's hips, though it was weird to think of the commander by his first name, ground into Yugi's. His claves tightened against the small of the man's back, hands foraging with their own need to touch and rub and express some of the bundled electricity. Yugi dragged his nails across between Sennen's shoulder blades through the blazer, hands finding the groove of the other's shoulders so head back Yugi could arch once more and drag them along each other like ships at sea, totally in motion. It proved too cutting to his nerves and arms collapsing back round the man's neck Yugi's fingers returned full circle to cup his face and kiss Sennen for what must've been the tenth time. His tongue dug past the man's lips, Yami's forced round his and back as his hips snapped in unison. Yugi moaned, twisted out, and burrowing his face into the shoulder of the same expensive suit cleaved into the Minister.

"_God!_" Yugi gasped open mouthed into the cotton.

At this rate they were both going to fall apart. Hefting Yugi a little higher on his own hips Sennen took the pilot's weight totally and the pilot realized they were motioning back to the desk. With that realization he tugged down the Minister's collar, elbow coming between their chests, and dragged his tongue up the tendon to bite at the alcove of the ear.

Yami groaned, depositing him clumsily onto the desk and forcing his hands between them the elder shoved Yugi to fall back. Panting, legs still entangled tight round the man's hips refusing to budge, Yugi slapped into the wood all tension and compulsion.

The other was seemingly just as breathless, huffing, chest beating urgently and fingers lewd Yami Sennen was rather suddenly dragging firm fingertips down Yugi's side, over his navel, along his spread thighs while the pilot curved up into him. Those same hands fastened round his belt buckle plucking at Yugi roughly to pry the tight pants open. Drawing his boots back to rest on the edge of the desk hurriedly Yugi raised his hips and tugging Sennen yanked them down his thighs with a grunt the pilot purred back at temptingly.

Yugi let his lips part, splayed, hands grasping the edge of the desk, knees drawn up and appealing, instructing, more with his eyes than anything else urged the man on. Sennen rose up onto the desk to reach his arm across the opposing side and rip at the drawers. They didn't speak. That would be too civilized. Yugi wanted in a flourish to tell the man to fuck him, to hurry up and take him, to do something faster and harder but driven instead by different urges moaned impatiently.

Yami slipped back from his heft across the wood resuming that position almost over Yugi. He had something in one hand, Yugi didn't care what but he assumed it would serve for lube. He fumbled at his own boot buckles which kept his pants lodged, stuck, at the mid-thigh and impatient Sennen manhandled his hips pulling him closer to the edge. Yugi let his legs down between them, found his arms, and heart palpitating splayed himself on his stomach instead. He didn't fucking care about the specifics of the '_how_' he just wanted… God he wanted…

Sennen didn't seem to be able to breathe properly, fumbling with his own pants, one hand finding the grove of Yugi's hip and holding tight. There wasn't any more thought, any real pity, and real attention to detail attempted on Sennen's part or wanted on Yugi's.

"_Ngh!_" Yugi gasped, turning his face into the wood as Sennen ran the hard, slick, blunt tip of his cock against him. The sound elongated, moaning hoarse through his exhale when with that hand on his hip the commander thrust slow. "_Ahh_…"

Yugi dug the front of his boots into the carpet, pushing up onto his tip toes to spread and arch a little better, more exposed, to the rough attempt at conquest. His heart pounded, he was giddily desperate in way he'd never quite found himself, and pushing back he tried to meet the man. The head slipped past, just inside, and moaning hard Sennen took his other hip in hand and continued to grind slow but insistent to part, penetrate and take.

"Fuck-fuck-_fuck!_" Yugi hissed hands fumbling underneath his own chest for purchase as the man's hips pressed into his arse firmly, arousal sheathing fully with the heady, parting and aching, sensation of the other bottoming out inside him. "_Fuck-fuck-fuck…_"

It tumbled out of Yugi's mouth in a low, continuous, haze. Sennen might as well have been fucking him dry. It was _perfect_.

"_God," _the man rasped choked, hunching over him.

It was almost too tight, almost too raw, almost too bitterly taunt in how it spread Yugi but it was…

"Oh…" he grumbled, inhaling shakily. "Move!_ Please!_"

"Fuck," Sennen unlaced weakly, 'please' wasn't a word Yugi tossed round lightly.

Sennen ground, extending his back to press into Yugi and accentuate the fullness as the man caught his own breath before pulling back, skin dragging, he thrust in hard. There was no restraint when Sennen bucked. Yugi fell apart, moaning responsively, his entire body taunt to boiling point and Sennen stalled into him husking a second time as if he couldn't believe the feedback he was receiving.

"You actually like that," he groaned, mystified.

"_Don't stop!_" Yugi ordered, panting into the paperwork. "Movemove…"

"Jesus Christ…" Sennen mumbled hopelessly, Yugi nearly felt him harden a little more inside and withdrawing almost entirely he thrust back into the pilot just as hard.

"Yes!" He spat. "Just like that!"

Moaning, almost pained, Yami appeared about to burst. He lurched staccato till, skin slapping, Yugi was forced harder into the furniture and the man found a rhythm that was skin scalding. The pilot swore, high broken syllables seething under his breath, at the painful totality of it. He could smell the Minister, feel his cock slipping inside him, mingling with a bitter ache that came from their rushing and a burn from the stretch. Yugi would probably bleed and he didn't care. God he didn't care at all! Fuck it!

Yugi was in no position to assist but he didn't need to. Lost in himself, throwing his hair back, and overheating in that damn suit Sennen had ceased to give a shit about anything else than using him. He was fucking Yugi. Yet, Yugi knew intrinsically somehow, that the way he writhed for it and the way he lurched moaning for the rough treatment touched the other man's desires more than Sennen would probably admit being such a gentleman. Profanity profuse as it was Yugi couldn't think of a better way to expel the electricity wild and frenzied inside him.

This paper pushing bureaucratic stiff was going to send Yugi into raw raptures. Yugi wanted it. Yugi wanted him. Navel tight, inner thighs coiled with gooey metaphysical slick perfectness, Yugi curled his nails in the varnish and realized, to his own amazed horror, he was going to break from just this. He was going to cum from just Yami Sennen's cock taking him till he couldn't breathe.

"Oh! Ngh-Fuck!" Yugi cried weakly, lips twitching, the tips of his boots digging into the pristine carpet.

Sennen moaned, half syllables, forced across the precipice by Yugi's pulsing contortions. Firm hands became vices, digging into Yugi's captured hips and collapsing into his back heavily, mouth pressing at the shadow of his ear, the man came with him. Yugi felt another rush, making a weak sound, and he accustomed himself to the bizarrely sensual sensation of having the other man's cum inside him.

They lost most of their tension, muscles sore as Yugi tried to recover with the desk cutting into his stomach and the Minister resting his body over his own. Yugi's ear filled with the sound of Sennen panting into him as he twisted his face to press his cheek into the cold wood.

Only then did Yugi's heart rate start to slow when the lightning bolt had passed.

"God…" Sennen whispered, shaking weakly as he pushed himself up, freeing Yugi's hips for a moment, till he found them briefly once more to untangle, withdrawing.

That motion seemed to be as much as Sennen could muster, making Yugi sigh in tender pain, and resting Yami caught himself with his hands on either side of Yugi using the desk to keep him aloft.

"Okay," he urged himself, inhaling and pushing himself to rise and buckle.

"Jesus…" Yugi groaned stiffly trying to unwring his tense muscles as he stood sloppily and pulled his pants back with one shaking hand. He laughed. "God…"

"Oh Lord…" Sennen murmured miserably, one hand on his hip dragging the other over his face and through his hair. "The hell did I just…? Shit…"

"Ha," he chortled weakly, "you're good."

Yami moaned, pained, burying his face in his hands.

"So much for professional," he rasped, messaging the bags under his eyes.

"We need to do that again." Yugi snorted, teasing, though he was hardly himself with his limbs recovering and another man's seed damply between his thighs.

"No." Yami stressed, spreading his hands hard to gesticulate the emphasis. "Never. That was completely inappropriate."

"Sure," Yugi laughed running his hand through his hair, "okay, whatever. Anything else Minister?"

"No," he fumbled, "J-just… just wait for your orders."

"Heh, you win," the pilot surrendered forcing himself to move stiffly back towards the door. "Later!"

* * *

1 Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: what? They fucked already? Yes well. A lot of my stories are: '_fall in love then make wild love_' this is _'make wild love and then have to face human emotions while pretending not to have any_'

Okay girls, sorry this is a little later. I had a weird night and I've forgotten the rest of my author notes. Anyway, love you guys.


	4. Chapter 4

Hey guys, we're moving towards end of year finals and I'm multitasking on fics so this is going to move to fortnightly posting for a while which frankly is still pretty amazing~ Once I have the end written I'll move back to weekly posting.

* * *

CHAPTER FOUR

"Sir…?" Mana paused gently at the door, tray for the day piled with abandoned mugs, grinning almost. "Did your meeting with Motou go alright today?"

"Whatever you heard: repress it." Yami ordered sharply, pointing boldly as he slipped on his jacket to escape home, head throbbing. "Nothing happened."

"Of course Minister," she turned but Yami could hear her snicker, "whatever you two decided on must've been interesting though considering the smile Motou waltzed out with."

"_Go home_." Yami moaned simply pitiful. "Write a thinly veiled blog post about me or something but don't bring it up. I'm trying to give myself a brain tumour before I have to see him again."

* * *

(Track- _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_ Soundtrack; track 14- _Meeting Tom Riddle_)

Yami tumbled back into his mattress and allowed his entire body a chance to sulk. His evening bath had helped but an early start, playing in radioactive wonderland and ending his dreary afternoon with a hard, inappropriate, bout of…_well_… with Motou of all people had left him drained.

Yami Sennen was a grown man who prided himself on restraint, elegance and composure. He hadn't partook in a wild impromptu fuck since he was twenty three, almost nine years ago, when he'd been older than Yugi Motou was _now_. He led armies, world politics and he'd long since repressed that hellish temper of his. Yet… he'd… _Oh God_. He dragged his hands over his face and consider taking up smoking again after a four year break.

Now on the one hand, the loudest hand, was reality screaming an array of things which were all starkly true. Motou was twelve years his junior, over the age of consent yes but if Yami had been a handful of years older he could've been Motou's father. Secondly Motou was his inferior, his subordinate, and one who needed to be kept under strict control as was. The pilot was almost a wild animal and one couldn't let Motou smell their fear or awkwardness in any circumstance. Yami couldn't even let his voice waver in the presence of Motou without the little runt exploiting it. On another level, purely legal, this was a complete abuse of power the media could rip him apart for. Talk about scandal and one could bet the press would pull on the fact they were legally '_related'_. Yami could see the headline '_Corruption: Incest and Homosexuality!_'

What if Motou thought to blackmail him? Didn't necessarily seem his style but then Yugi Motou was chronically unstable.

Why did this happen to him? He couldn't keep it in his pants _one time_, with one sociopath, and… _argh_.

Palm dragging over his face Yami kicked out his nightgown, still damp, and considered that unfortunately maybe Mana had been right. Maybe he did need to get out or at the least get laid. Surely there was a nice brothel somewhere in the capital with a confidentiality waver. Surely there was a black market in the underground to buy _'human labour'_. Yami had them arrested all the time! He should've been straight, which was a funny thought since Yami had chosen men specifically to pass the hazardous world of women who wanted rings and came demanding things with bastards…

Yami shuffled up onto his elbows.

What was that?

He strained, quiet, and waiting was quite sure he had heard something beyond the open to into the hallway just a moment ago like humming far off. He paused sagging in the lapsing tension of his spine.

Nothing…

Then… he heard something again?

Yami pushed himself up, leaning his elbows into his thighs, what was that? Was it just his mind playing tricks on him? He was almost sure…He hummed along with the barest traces of the sound he could catch. Was that _The_ _Itsy-Bitsy Spider? _

He ceased humming and straining his hearing further, eyes flickering to the bedside table where he kept but one of his guns, he waited.

Nothing.

He must've been hearing things…

* * *

(Track- _Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps_ by Doris Day)

Yugi undid his collar three days later saluting flippantly as he drifted past Sennen's perky secretary who instantly jumped to beam cattishly at him. What was her problem? Whatever. He let himself in without bothering to knock, he'd never bothered before, and found himself startling the Minister with a pen in his mouth and his mind obviously otherwise occupied given how he jumped.

"Motou!" He rasped, a frustrated parent, "_knock!_ Did they raise you in a barn?"

"A hangar actually," he sassed kicking the door closed behind him, inducing another angry cringe from the Minister in the process. "Better ventilation, less manure, very nostalgic."

"Wondrous." Sennen sighed. "Where's the rest of your contingent?"

Oh we were trying very hard to be official today, nasty almost, Yugi smirked. Poor Sennen, that just made Yugi want to _ruin_ his day.

"Prepping for deployment," he shrugged, "what are the new orders?"

"We're sending the four of you to scout round Arch Tree. The Bohemian navy has been hugging the coast if satellite is anything to go by. Don't engage. I strictly want recon."

"So my oracle was right." Yugi snorted.

"That's all Motou."

Oh now Yugi couldn't have that.

"Something crawl up your ass and die Minister?" He preened wickedly.

"_Out_." Sennen warned eyes locking hard over Yugi.

Yugi strayed in, never breaking eye contact and pulling himself up the desk mounted it. He slid on the varnish, over the papers, throwing his legs over the opposing side, feet resting firm on the opposing armrests of Sennen's chair effectively fencing him in. The Minister, with all his gal, sat firm and unwavering as though thoroughly unaffected and terribly unimpressed.

"Now see," Yugi invited, leaning back into his arms. "I don't think I should leave yet."

"I _will _send someone else on this mission." Sennen threatened.

"Let's spell it out, real slow," the pilot murmured utterly dismissing him as he gathered his arms back and leant in towards the taunt form of the older man. "I _want_you."

Yugi's fingers unclasped the buckle of one knee high boot slowly, watching the Minister's pupils stray for just a second, wandering then to its twin clasp.

"I want you to fuck me," he tempted closing in as pressing his knees together he started to toe his boots off to thud against the carpet, nose nearly brushing the politician's, his grin criminal as their breath mingled. "I want you inside me."

Sennen inhaled slow and deep, eyes wavering ever so slightly, and lips parting Yugi felt his own heartbeat. He could almost hear the gears grinding together inside Sennen as he butted against his own stubbornness.

"I want…" Yugi's fingers trailed to his own waist line tugging out the top button, "I want _you_."

Yugi wasn't anywhere near conflicted. Proficiency and passion were his sticklers. He didn't give a damn for propriety, ethics, the tender romances of intention, social complexity or legalities. He'd escaped martial law and consequence his whole life. He made people's lives hard but he did it in an open way, hostile to the core, hence he wasn't interested in pussy footing round what he wanted. Sennen was, somehow, _incredibly _desirable when that maniac inside his proper exterior broke free. Yugi wanted it again, he was addicted to his own satisfaction by any means, and if that meant he had to corrupt and jail break Yami Sennen's inner psychopath out of the crusty courtier he'd do it. As a matter of fact he intended to keep doing it till he didn't want it any more.

Yugi spread his thighs, buttons parted, and slackening back into his palms counted seconds through heartbeats. Sennen inhaled at the increased space eyes trailing, almost there, so _so _close to just…

He strained through the most pained expression Yugi had ever seen. The fox was among the hens and Yugi Motou had just presented the sexual deviant starving secretly inside Sennen with a three course meal. Unable to help himself Yugi smacked his lips together quietly in a plucky little sound of wetly smacking skin and-

"_Damn it._" Sennen growled fingers snapping like iron round his knees to heft Yugi to the edge of the desk as he stood.

Yugi didn't need to be told twice. Laughing, he found the Minister's collar under his fingers and when hot lips seared, almost melting, into each other he found himself squeezed into the man's chest. Arms bent between them Yugi's fingers, nails scrapping, trailed down the seam of the latest perfectly pressed suit and parting the folds grazed Sennen's chest. _Shit_! He was still built! Yugi purred, dragging his nails down the pectorals, smoothing his palms over the sparse navel. He grasped between the man's shoulder blades, fingers flexing sharply, enfolding snug human heat along his own torso.

* * *

(Track- _Road to El Dorado_ Soundtrack _Chel Dorado)_

Motou was laughing. Yami considered slapping him but…_Oh_, no, no time for that. Considering he could push the pilot back onto his desk and slip his pants off today Yami didn't care if Motou laughed at him. It was worse than ever when Yami found himself in that compromising position afresh. With Yugi sprawled on his back Yami could _see_ him this time. He could watch that lithe, perfectly composed, body lull back moaning as he thrust between bare knees that brushed under his ribcage. He could _watch_ himself sink into the little vagabond.

He was so tight. It was constrictive, nearly painful, nearly impossible and whenever Yami's arousal slipped out of his own control making him buck hard enough to hurt Yugi arched his praises brokenly. Watching the perfect body contort under him, round him, was the stuff of wet dreams Yami had composed at sixteen. Motou was a symphony of discord: dishevelled, half dressed, flushed and sweltering in the air conditioning till they were both sweating. He was a toned, slender, mess of razor limbs all pale and responsive like a little pocket of trapped lightning.

Yami slapped one hand on the wood by Yugi's hip, grasping its twin in the opposing set of digits, giving himself more to rest into. No prep, no coddling, no lying or buying dinner instead he just had a crazy minx to grind into almost dry. A crazy minx who liked it. Yami moaned, he couldn't take this, he gyrated his hips fast, slick and bitter and Yugi let him. He almost invited Yami in, egged him on, so the more he let go, the harder he fucked, the more little Yugi swore. Yami was going to hell for this, absolutely, but holy shit no wonder he couldn't help himself.

He felt his eyes drift closed. It didn't help his spiralling, almost primal, libido. He could still see Yugi imprinted on the back of his eyelids the darkness just intensified the broken sounds, the squelch, the bone grinding lock of the moment they fused in motion. Opening his eyes was worse though. The pilot looked so_ fuckable_ when he wasn't being insidious it was un-bearable.

Yami wasn't a good man, not by a traditional standard, but he'd tried so hard to be professional today. Straining to breaking point in his trousers, too embarrassed to stand while part of him leapt to attention upon the arrival of the world's worst career soldier. Then Motou threw himself on his desk like a Sunday roast and opened his legs and… yeah Yami spiralled out of it from there. He was a man. Men were stupid creatures fundamentally. He could only help himself so far when he was offered something this molten.

"Oh yeah…" Yugi rasped cocking his calf round Yami's hip to rock into his thrusts. They arched together, meeting in the middle, perfectly synchronized and all slick cinematography that only added another layer of transparency to how deeply Yugi Motou enjoyed the darker strands of love making.

Yami might just break. He had a chronic, crippling, inner weakness for this. Not so much the nastiness of the touch, though truth be told he loved the unhindered freedom of not having to be nice at all, but rather… To be wanted handicapped him. He couldn't handle being desired. He had never been the most favoured prince at the ball, the first picked, the best kid on the playground and as a sour adult he still couldn't resist having that old chestnut scratched. Someone who desired him was innately sexy by default.

"God," Yugi purred, "_yes…_"

"Keep talking." Yami ordered. He had such a fan-fucking-tastic tone for filthy dialogue.

"Hah," Motou chuckled, "_hmm_… keep fucking me and I'll _scream_if you want me to."

"_Ah_…" Yami muttered messily. That was tempting. He moved with gusto on subconscious instinct rather than with deliberation at that. His cock was thoroughly in control at this point.

* * *

(Track- repeat)

The Minister fell apart first this time. When he tucked himself back into his trousers between Yugi's thighs the pilot found some satisfaction in that. Catching his breath Yugi twitched noticeably when Sennen deposited his pants across his bare navel. What a gentleman he smirked. Shoving down the shirt the elder had forced up to squeeze at his rib cage Yugi slipped the fabric back up his legs as he rested on his back.

"_Hmm_," he mumbled.

"What?" Sennen rasped all weak kneed when he slumped back into his desk chair.

"Still warm…" Yugi alluded softly. "I could get used to your cum inside me."

"_Shit._" The man hissed. "Shut up or I swear to God…"

"Don't let me stop you," he chuckled as he found his arms, "I can go again if you want _Sir_."

"God no," Sennen whined, "I cannot do that. I'll have a heart attack."

"Poor old man," Yugi sighed laughing, "_hmm_…I'll have to pop by when I get back for a _debriefing _then."

"_This,_" the Minister clarified suddenly eyes flaring, "does not interfere with or change anything. This does not leave this office or I will have your head. We could _both _be discharged for this."

"Oh yeah because I totally want to tell all my girlfriends," Yugi snorted. "_Relax_Minister. I get it. I've got no interest in going soft on you just because I like those hands of yours in action. I like the warfare better than sex. I think it's safe to say our priorities are aligned."

"You understand then this isn't going to get you any special privileges."

"Ha!" Yugi laughed boisterously. "Cause fuck knows I don't get any of those as is!"

"Do you understand?" He insisted seriously. Take it from Sennen to want to cover his ass the worrywart. What did he think Yugi wanted to knock him up or something?

"That you're an unattractive killjoy when you've got your pants up? Yeah. I got it." He slipped from the desk. "Later!"

* * *

(Track- _We Meet in Dreams_ by Gothic Storm)

Yugi hated rain in these conditions. It fucked with everything. The mechs were essentially waterproof, could run them through a river and then hose them down, but the mud and the humidity of the Arch Tree rainforest made the systems tender. Yugi knew when it started raining heavy through the canopy he had to pull in for cover. There wasn't another option. His sat nav highlighted the slope he was on, how close he was to the coast, and with the weather feed coming in he knew this was going to get worse before it got better. Part of the forest was probably going to flood and he could wash the Republicans out sure but it would be a fight neither side could really wage in these conditions. He wanted a glorious victory not dirty, sloppy, shambling with wild artillery.

"Hey boys," he prepped over the secure frequency to Katsuya, Ryuji and Hitoro. "I'm about four clicks from you. I'm heading in for cover up the mountain. Find yourselves somewhere dry to tarp your mechs for the night and we'll reconvene in the morning."

"_We can reach you,_" Katsuya insisted, "_give me forty minutes._"

"There's going to be a river between us by then." Yugi warned rain whooshing down the outside of the mech and spotting up the camera feed till he was forced to switch to sonar mapping. "You lot are only scattered half a click apart. Meet up and take cover. I'll find you in the morning."

"_Yes Sir!_" Ryuji and Hitoro chorused but Katsuya was always stubborn.

"Switching off radio. Keep your sat phones on." Yugi ordered flipping the switch.

Frankly he didn't want to meet up with them and sing camp songs. He didn't mind them, they were growing on him, they were useful cannon fodder but he could only play nice so long. Yugi had spent the greater part of the past four years traversing the front line and the greater part of the globe solo. It was an adjustment to have people accompanying him. Not something he took to. He took to most things like a fish to water but he was rarely comfortable in any medium outside direct life-death brutality or total isolated silence.

He kept the mech from trudging in the mud. The last thing he wanted was to sink it and get stuck but using the trees as supports without some serious restraint would leave a big obvious trail for any Republicans to follow. The rain was thickening when he made it up a slope of sheer rock, higher above sea level, into a cave system that his sonar mapped out with reasonable enough efficiency to assure him it was unoccupied.

First order of business was to get the mech in, tarp it from the water, set himself a fire and a dry place to sleep and sequester himself with his equipment, a weapon and a meal. He didn't eat much as rule, kind of a distraction, but he'd pop a couple of extra vitamin pills if only because this kind of atmosphere was draining on the body.

Yugi was good at this. He could set up camp in his sleep, wounded, in artic deserts to barren wastelands. It was a beautifully thoughtless motion. He could retreat back inside himself and not consider anything but the procession of his body to fulfil life's most basic needs. Survival was an amazing distraction for the disquieted mind. He could take the toils of the physical world, of nature, he revelled in them mostly but in a tepid place like this he occasionally wished for creature comforts. A cool breeze to offset his sweat, a little less rain so he could safely get out of his combat suit without opening himself up to the risks of hypothermia and mould, and maybe another twenty minutes on Sennen's desk actually…

Yugi was surprised how much he'd been thinking about that. Absence makes the loins burn hotter or something along those lines. Either way whatever the Minister had done, whatever deal he had made with the devil, to be so very good at _that_ had been worth the investment. Yugi was going to seek out a top up as soon as they checked back to HQ.

_CLUNK-CZZZK _

Yugi paused in the process of setting out his pack from the cockpit of the now tarped mech. He had keen ears. He recognized the sound of straining pistons on rock well. It was like a gunshot to him. He threw his pack between the legs of the mech, under the camo tarp, slipping behind it as his hands flittered.

In one hand he found his gun, in the other his sat phone, and round the shadow of his mech watched the entrance of the cave. A quick check of the sat phone proved Katsuya, Ryuji and Hitoro were still four clicks off though now united. Way too far off to be here and equally too far to be of any assistance. Shoving his phone back he clicked off safety on his gun. Had to be a Republican caught in the rain.

They were sure as hell going to wish they'd opted for another cave if they came any closer. Yugi inhaled, steadied his heart rate and waited it out.

Sure enough another unit clunked into the cover of the cave mouth about twenty meters back. It obscured any light with its own form but Yugi could make out the frayed edges of the vision well enough to get the shape and the colour. He didn't recognize the model immediately, something new, and red…

No…?

"Fate you crazy bitch…"

The mech paused, cameras flickering on and hiding back behind the foot of his mech Yugi waited. There was no hiding his machine was here, that was gone, but he could hide perhaps his own presence until he got a chance to do something offensive.

He heard unhooking gears. Waited. The whoosh of parting metal- No! No way was this guy _that_stupid! Surely? Who the fuck got out of their cockpit?

"Hello!" Atem Horakhty hollered. "Hey! I'm guessing someone's in here! I'm a Republican officer. I don't mean any harm. I just need somewhere to bunk for the night!"

What a dumb fuck.

"If you're Imperial we'll call it a temporary cease fire!"

Sad irony was the retard probably meant it the sincere, valiant, douchebag. No wonder Yugi wanted to cap this guy. Sighing he considered his options, reassessed, and found himself more conflicted than ever. Atem Horakhty needed to get his ass kicked and Yugi wanted to do it. Yet taking him out now would be a pathetic end to the best challenge Yugi had faced in years. He wasn't a chivalrous guy but he wanted a glorious victory especially if it was this Republican dipshit.

"You sure about that?" Yugi called back from cover, checking the handgun carefully in his gloved fingers.

"You have my word!"

"I'll hold you to it!" Yugi hollered, sighing to himself, because honestly he really didn't expect this guy to shot him without a proper fight either. "I'm coming out armed!"

"Got it!"

Aiming high Yugi instinctively knew how to gauge where Atem would be but he didn't pull the trigger even as he came round into sight. The Republican had switched up his low lights, hanging half out his cockpit, and holding up both hands showed them empty. It didn't really matter though he was still in the cockpit of the super machine after all. It was all about if Yugi could cap him before he hid back to use it if things turned sour.

Sighing Yugi shoved his handgun back into his belt and threw both his own hands up in a show of good faith. One of them had to buckle first and he had faith in his quick draw. Nodding Atem slunk back a little in his restraints.

"Just going to park it!"

"Got ya!" Yugi permitted, gliding back as the mech clunked forward to settle into a crouch near his own.

A moment later the Republican had locked the cockpit and was down on the stone with a pack thrown over his own shoulder. The similarities in their equipment was nothing special it was just how armies functioned Yugi supposed. Basic training shit.

"Mind giving me a hand?" Atem offered hefting up a blue laced bag Yugi knew probably contained a tarp for the unit.

"Why not?" He snorted throwing his hands out to invite the Republican to begin unwrapping it.

"I'm Atem," he introduced pleasantly, handing an end to Yugi.

_Holy shit_.

This fuck didn't realize who he was.

Yugi wasn't sure if he should be insulted or not, letting his arms fall back by his side dumbly as his mind ticked over. He supposed the rain warped the sounds of their voices and Atem hadn't seen him with his cockpit cam the same way Yugi had seen him but surely they had photos of Yugi in the Republic? Sure it was a mainly agricultural patchwork country but this guy would have to be backwater never to have caught a newsreel with some of the footage of Yugi.

"Yeah," he grumbled, one hand grasping his hip. "I know dumbass."

"Huh?" Atem straightened. "Sorry, you are?"

"Yugi Motou."

"Oh…" The Republican was suddenly his full height blazing red eyes darting up and down Yugi's unimpressed visage. "You… you look nothing like I expected."

Yugi could only snort, crossing both arms across his chest as the Republican appeared to backtrack in his mind. He was surprised the man didn't back off rather he turned to his bag, glanced back and sighing laughed.

"I swear…" He breathed in amazement offering the edge of the tarp again. "Shall we?"

"You serious…?" Yugi baulked to his own surprise.

"I gave you my word," Atem answered simply, "besides now's not exactly the time to fight I think we agree."

"That's it?" He muttered, perhaps a little disappointed. "No explosion?"

"You're way too little for me to feel good about beating you up in hand to hand." Atem smirked playfully. "Now, if you don't mind, I wouldn't be opposed to making some dinner after I take care of this. I've got some pretty good rations."

"Better," Yugi warned with his own snort taking the edge of the tarp, "I'm starving."

"You look it." He snorted. "I could probably throw you over my shoulder."

"Oh you'd regret it."

"Probably," Atem admitted with a hesitant grin, "Firecracker."

* * *

(Track- _Stay Now _by Jem)

Man could cook with crappy resources Yugi would give him that. He beat Katsuya out of the park on that front. Sure Yugi didn't eat a lot or often but when good shit was offered he'd lick the bowl and not be shy about it. He needed carbs to keep him up in this weather and with a warm fire and warm food he wasn't embarrassed to tip the bowl back even if Atem laughed.

"Don't they have food in your budget?" He teased.

"Nope, usually have to roast the bodies of my kills," Yugi shot back darkly.

That floored him. The man didn't seem to know if he should laugh or not. For a second he almost seemed to believe it but shaking his head as he recovered smiled back into his bowl. In the half-light Yugi got a pretty good look at him. Dark skinned, dark haired, blonde fringe, electric red eyes, strong physique, wicked scar down his right eye and cheek…

"Where'd you get that?" Yugi asked.

"You're blunt." Atem sighed. "You. I almost lost the sight. I won't ever be quite the same."

"Thought so," he grinned into his bowl, tipping it again. "If that's you're only scar you're lucky."

"You must be herculean then." He shot.

"Hmm," Yugi snorted, "I'm a patchwork quilt under this suit. Just cause I keep my face clean doesn't mean I get off scot free. I have burns from you." A lot of thin white scars too.

"I'm not the one who set off that laser at close range." The Republican defended boldly before spluttering. "You could've… you could've _died_."

"I know that," he grumbled, "I'm not _stupid._"

"I didn't think you were," Atem corrected, "I just didn't think you were suicidal either."

"_I'm not."_Yugi grunted.

"Then you're crazy." He sighed. "Who does that?"

"Winners."

"How old are you?" Atem shot obviously bothered if not increasingly so.

"How old are you?" Yugi retorted sharply on instinct .

"Twenty-three. Your turn."

"Twenty," he sighed in exasperation, "what's your point?"

"You've been on the field for years," Atem stressed, "and you have to have been in training before that probably for years. At fourteen or, more likely, at ten even and at that age you are in no position to make decisions about your future especially not about whether or not it should involve rifles. So my point is: whoever was supposed to be looking out for you didn't have your best interests or needs in mind. That makes them monstrous and they made you monstrous."

"And how is this any of your business?" He hissed.

"I'm just wondering what kind of Government and what kind of family does that to a child." He confronted. "You have to be miserable."

"_Ha!_" He baulked. "What are you judging that off? Your tight, neat, little world view?"

"No, I'm judging that off the fact that if you were happy you'd think a little longer about risking your life to win a duel."

_Shit_.

Pause.

Cue explosion.

"You know what?" Yugi snorted, kicking up to find his feet, "_fuck you._"

"Hey! Where are you going?" Atem railed setting down his bowl and scrambling up to his feet.

"I don't have to sit here and listen to shit from some third class tech monkey!" Yugi fumed striding to dig his fingers into his tarp of his mech and start tugging.

"Whoa!" The man pranced closing in after him. "Cool it. You can't go out now in that. It's pitch black and it's pouring!"

"The fuck do you care?"

"Hey, no," Atem whispered grasping at Yugi's flourishing hands till giving up he wrapped his arms snug round the pilot to squeeze him back into his chest as the smaller struggled. "Calm down. I'm sorry. Chill, please, you can't go out in that you'll get yourself killed."

"Well that'll be a great convenience for the Republican army!"

"_Shh, _kid," Atem groaned, "it's okay. Stop it. I'm sorry."

"Get off me!"

"I'm sorry," he repeated, arms tight. "Come on this isn't worth getting yourself hurt over. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut. _Shh_, I'm sorry, it's okay."

Yugi let himself still, fought to let logic win out and knowing it was madness to head back into the storm sagged in the man's grip. Steadying his footing he inhaled under his fringe against the burn swelling inside him. What was that? Atem had hit something head on, bullseye, and battling his lashes Yugi realiz- Oh shit. _Don't cry you idiot!_He chastised himself harshly.

"You okay…?" Atem fussed cautiously.

"I'm fine," Yugi rasped darkly, "you going to let go or what?"

"Sorry…" He mumbled arms peeling free so Yugi could roll his shoulders and drag his forearm under his nose.

Don't cry, Yugi reminded himself, not in front of this nutcase anyway.

"Seriously, what do you care if I get myself killed anyway?" He needed another second before he faced eye contact.

"I just don't think anyone should have to die," the Republican muttered, "I don't think it's right and…"

"What?"

"Never mind," he dismissed carefully.

"Well if you're that much of an idealist you're in the wrong career."

"I'm part of this war because I want to stop it." Atem responded firmly. "I don't think someone else should have to send their son and I don't think anyone else should have to die. At least this way I can do something."

"Whatever," Yugi grunted, "you're going to get a nasty little wake-up call one day."

"That's your opinion." He conceded stubbornly.

* * *

(Track- _In the Next Life_ by Gothic Storm)

Horakhty cleverly laid off the politics after that. Whether out of some nervous guilt complex from thinking he'd distressed Yugi, more than the pilot would admit he had, or just because he'd realized arguing with the Imperial was pointless. Yugi didn't care. He'd lost his sass for the night. All he wanted was to sit by the entrance to the cave, the fire behind him, and watch the rain fall in the darkness.

_Don't think_.

The breeze hadn't got any lighter, the air was still weighty but the rain had cooled the atmosphere. There was a chill creeping in through the humidity. It was a strange mingling of temperatures fussing, nipping, at each other.

Yugi coiled his hands in his lap and switching up the back of his mind tried to block everything from reaching his conscious. It wasn't worth thinking about. None of it was worth thinking about. It was an old wound Atem had just thrust his sword at distinctly and Yugi repressed it. This was who he was. He was _proud_.

By the fire the Republican had laid out his sleeping bag and his boots clapped against the stone a moment later as he wandered closer.

He paused a foot or two back.

"You want first watch or second watch?" He offered gently.

"First," Yugi muttered blandly, gazing out.

A silence he assumed was cautious consent.

"Don't freeze, kay?" Atem remarked, draping another thick thermal blanket round Yugi's shoulders.

Yugi almost looked, startled, but leaving the matter where it lay Atem left him where he was and retreated back to the fire without any further riling.

Yugi didn't like this guy. He was a challenge, Yugi loved that but he hated, was terrified of, the prospect of losing at anything. Worse he didn't get Atem. He didn't understand it. The Republican was too pleasant, trying to be noble, and he was surprisingly shrewd for such an idealistic philosopher. He had rather cunning stipulations of cause and effect which Yugi rather recoiled from. He preferred to live the unexamined life himself also untouched by stipulations.

The more time passed the more apparent it became that Yugi was going to have to kill him.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed guys!

1 I can't wait to hear theories about Yami's little singer and Yugi's background~

2 As I was discussing with one reviewer last chapter: Atem is one of those guys. The type of guy you don't see anymore. He's honestly the type of guy who, if he were an action figure, would come with a slice or apple pie and an American flag. Makes him quite a fun contrast to our asses!

Next time: Yugi gets touchy feely, Yami makes a new friend, and neither of them burst into flames upon visiting a Church.


	5. Chapter 5

Hey guys, I made enough progress this week to give you a chapter today. Can't promise weekly updates are continuing again but at the most it'll be fortnightly I promise. I figure you'd rather I update if I could than not~

* * *

CHAPTER FIVE

(Track- '_Saw'_ Theme)

Yami Sennen flipped back a page. He was spending the first of what he assumed would be many nights in the outer city laboratory overseeing the damn Z0-RC. They were months from finishing, maybe even years, but if the Emperor wanted it then Yami would be here if only to sort their paperwork.

His patience on the matter however wasn't assisted by working in the more domestic side of the base. The offices had been reshuffled to make room for all the construction that needed to be done on this monolith and the room Yami had sequestered himself in was cramped with crappy lighting. He didn't want to give this absurd project any attention let alone any time or money. Yet here he was, stuck, at eleven at night scrawling through their nonsense. Was anyone even in charge of this damn place? Who signed all these?

Motou would be back from recon tomorrow if that was any consolation. Truthfully it wasn't but at least then perhaps Yami could work free some tension. The sex drive of his youth had been reawakened somehow now it had something, or someone, to tarry with and it was downright distracting.

_Rattle_

Yami blinked raising his head to the rattling of the door. What did someone want now? Shouldn't most of them have left for the night? The handle twisted- _click_- and aching mildly the door exhaled open lightly. It was parted but not far enough at all for Yami to see beyond it to the hallway.

"What?" He grunted.

He heard an inhale and then a giggle…?

"Motou?" He murmured quietly. It almost sounded like him.

Silence.

The door creaked a little, drawing back towards closing, and grumbling impatiently Yami strode up from his seat to grasp his handle on the inner side. He was in no mood for games. He wrenched it hard, out of whoever's grip he felt waver at his tug, and pulling it open-

Found no-one…

Yami paused, a little taken aback, eyes darting up and down the empty light of the dingy steel hallway. He had felt someone on the other side of the handle, heard them, between his opening the door and his standing here there was nothing but seconds. Yami would've heard some denizen playing tricks on him running out of sight and yet it was as if they were there and then suddenly thin air.

What on earth was that? He fumbled a little in himself. Yami had never ever been superstitious. Not since he was a tiny boy but there was something distinctly haunting about the entire moment. Someone had probably thought it would be very funny to play with him he reasoned however and collecting himself behind years of stoutness brushed it aside. Fucking jokers playing games in the night…

* * *

(Track- _'Come on Closer_' by Jem)

Yugi had opted not to tell any of his collective about the night he'd spent sharing a dingy cave with Atem Horakhty. It didn't make any difference. They'd slept, unfurled their gear, and in the morning decided to go their opposing ways without conflict. The mud had been too slick for a good, proper, fight and the pair of them too cramped from sleeping on the stone. Yugi had opted out as had Atem. They'd meet again, that was inevitable, but Yugi's inner show pony wanted his thrashing of the Republican to be exceptional.

He had the information for that now. A little spying on the Republic had confirmed, with Yugi's instincts, where the enemy forces were heading and with that typed up to HQ encrypted Yugi could be assured their respective armies would meet somewhere much more suited to dense conflict in the near future.

Some tiny part of Yugi would consider he had been uneasy about fighting after that night because of the old scars Atem had brushed at. Three days later however he had supressed such a weak notion under his usual saunter to ignore it entirely. It was bullshit. Yugi didn't give a damn about anything the stupid little denizen had theorized, he told himself, it was posturing he laughed at.

"_Ah!" _He jumped. "Hey! What are you-?"

"It's called prepping," Sennen grunted in exasperation, "sane human beings tend to opt for it before a sexual rendezvous."

"Whatever," Yugi snorted pawing at his shoulder, "cut to the chase."

"Oh just shut up and indulge me," the Minister ordered.

Sighing Yugi slapped his forehead into the commander's shoulder stubbornly. He would sulk but he liked this. He'd been looking forward to coming back to this and hands resting on Sennen's shoulders he would play along for a moment or two if it shut the disagreeable codger up. Sennen had Yugi in his lap, the pilot's knees straddling either side of the Minister's thighs digging into the seat. One arm held firm round Yugi's waist, merging their upper bodies together, while a free hand slipped down his back slickly and curling pressed fingertips against hesitantly parting muscle.

Yugi found himself gasping, teeth digging hard into his pouting bottom lip, fingers curling claw-like at the shoulders of another of Sennen's blazers. Fuck. Yugi was oversensitive, it was nearly embarrassing, and if he was going to tense his spine so tightly at little else than Sennen's index finger motioning slowly in…_out_…_in_… Yugi forced out a tight sound from the back of his throat. This was not worth moaning over surely…?

"Oh…" Sennen sighed in his own little world. He seemed more than pleased to have Yugi in his lap, biting back sounds as he fingered the pilot.

Typical, but Yugi wasn't about to give into the Minister's satisfaction solely. A second finger curled in after the first and groaning Yugi felt himself flex, contracting, with the motion. Refusing to surrender, to make a fool of himself, he squirmed one hand between their flushed chests down to the open crotch of Sennen's pants.

"Ah!" He groaned appreciatively on reflex fingers curling in Yugi roughly, forcing the pilot closer and biting his lip Yugi struggled back against the moan.

"_Nnh_…" Yugi hissed into the man's shoulder. Fuck, it was even better when those digits motioned roughly inside him and tension mounting he fastened his own hand more firmly round Sennen's arousal.

Yugi dragged his palm along the man, evened the playing field, and leaning into Sennen felt strong thighs arch up under him. That was worth purring over. Yugi could feel the muscle pulsing in those legs. He wanted to put that to good use.

"Come on," he urged into Sennen's ear, raking his free fingers through the man's hair. "Fuck me already."

_"Argh,"_Sennen spat, "are you ever satisfied?"

"When your cock's hot and hard inside me," Yugi rasped threateningly into the shell of his ear.

"_Oh_…" Sennen swore rumbling into a grunt. That shut him up.

Yugi could feel the pre-cum oozing between his fingers and dragging them along the man's length he slickened the skin to sooth his strokes. The heat made Yugi purr. If Sennen didn't hurry the _fuck_ up… Yugi squeezed his fingers, pushing back with the hand resting on the Minister's shoulder to watch Sennen's face as he allowed his head to lull into the seat fingers rocking inside Yugi insistently. He looked far too content to stay just like that.

"Come on," Yugi panted stubbornly, "I need your cock inside me."

"_This_," Sennen grumbled eyes wafting open, "is the last time I try to be nice to you you greedy uncultured harlot."

"You can think of something worse than that," Yugi prompted.

"I don't need to," the man grinned lightly, fingers slipping out.

Yugi bit his lip forced to avert his eyes as the lesser of two evils. Damn it. He couldn't duck his head and properly hide any reaction without utterly giving it away in the first place that there was something to cover up. Stuck like this, face to face, Sennen smugly had the freedom of taking in every twitch of his brow.

Sennen rested one hand on the nape of Yugi's neck, holding him in place by the scruff, his twin appendage straying back between them to take his arousal from between Yugi's teasing fingers. Yugi felt his features contort, his entire form now dependent upon his hands at the commander's shoulders and his knees holding him aloft. Sennen brushed the leaking tip carefully between Yugi's legs, arching up ever so slightly to find the groove, eyes trailing expertly over Yugi's face waiting for the hint. Yugi felt him press against the tightly constricting folds of skin and inhaling lowered his hips down fractionally into the upward press.

Sennen steadied his breathing, Yugi could hear the hitch as he struggled to constrain himself, and eyes fluttering closed Yugi allowed himself freedom to sink down inviting the man into the tight passage.

"Ngh." He dug his teeth in, Sennen's hand tightened round the back of his neck, those strong thighs bucked up between his and fused them the last inch till Sennen was purring victoriously.

"Yes," Sennen praised, hands fluttering to Yugi's hips while the pilot kept his own digging into the man's shoulders. "Ready?"

"Twenty minutes ago." Yugi sassed boldly.

He didn't regret it when Sennen bucked rough under him. It was a perfect, melting cocoa, grind to wicked. Yugi's fingers found purchase, back arched and in a long, slow, progression they found a rhythm of skin on skin.

Now this was what Yugi came here for. This is what he wanted. He wanted the hot rock of sex. He wanted Yami Sennen of all people fucking him hard and dirty. They synchronized perfectly all grind and slickness into each other. They slid along each other, panting, and digging his hands through Sennen's hair Yugi brought them back to nose to nose. Yugi met his eyes and neither of them seemed able to look away. Yugi drew in Sennen's pant, Sennen's nose bumped his, eyes dark and Yugi felt the Minister's hand dragging up his back to clasp the back of his skull and bring him hard into a nasty kiss. Yugi's tongue shivered, Sennen's broke past his lips and growling the pilot sucked, lips pursing, round the intrusion.

* * *

(Track- '_Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing_' by Stonebriar Community Church Choir)

Yami Sennen felt very uncomfortable in any church especially the grand Capital cathedral during the evening service. What business did the Imperial royal family have taking part in any religious service? Gozaburo sat to his right, smoking a fat cigar, puffing at the Bishop and Yami had to resist the urge to shake his head. He, Gozaburo, Seto, Mokuba and Motou were the worst possible people to be placed in the front row of the audience and yet tradition mandated it.

Perhaps it was only fitting. If anyone needed to be able to hear the priest clearly it was the five of them. Though Yami had decided very young that he failed to meet any of the criteria to break past the pearly gates. Currently they were all in a race to see who could get a front row seat in Hell first and it was go big or go home stakes. Yami was surprised that Yugi Motou hadn't broken into flames beside him but surely there would be burns when the holy water was broken out.

He glanced, straight backed, to Motou out of the corner of his eye and could see the impropriety of their afternoon. He could nearly smell it. Yami could remember, far too fresh, Motou tugging up his pants with the small of his back hitting the edge of Yami's desk.

He coughed sitting impossibly tighter and eyes flickering Motou seemed to read his mind when he smirked next to his shoulder, lips pursing smugly. Now thinking of homosexual relations during a service had to be a short cut to damnation if ever Yami had encountered one.

"Let us pray." The Bishop hobbled into his mic.

Gozaburo puffed his cigar, Seto checked his phone, Mokuba rubbed his knees and lowering his eyes to his lap Yami was perhaps the only one who presented the illusion of attempting to repent. Yugi, detestable troublemaker, closed his eyes still smirking with his knees swinging. He was thinking of his sins alright…

"_The itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the water spout…_"

Yami twitched, tensing, and raising his eyes under his fringe tried to find the source. He could hear the murmur of tuned harmonizing so very close and cocking his head over his shoulder was surprised to find no one there but a bitter old duke snoring.

_"Down came the rain and washed the spider out…_"

The voice lilting it was so thoughtful over the notes as if they were savouring every, single, tasty syllable and at once Yami was sure it was Motou's voice. He turned but found the pilot still closed eyed and tight lipped.

"_Out came the sun and tried up all the rain and the itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the spout again…_"

What was that? The hell was that? Yami felt his heart twist uneasily as the sound died off without anyone seeming to notice it had even begun. He couldn't scan the church properly without appearing mad and yet he already felt so. No one else had hesitated, no one else had raised their head, no one but Yami. It was the same hum he was sure. So sure he…

* * *

(Track- '_Moonlight Sonata_/_Piano Sonata No.14_' by Beethoven)

Yami was losing his mind. He was utterly and totally losing his mind. His nerves were fried. He found himself slipping out of focus, found doors twitching, found little noises round him and he…damn it…Yami dragged his hands through his hair in his seat.

He kept hearing that _fucking_ song everywhere.

He felt his teeth grind, the hair on the back of his neck on edge, every time he heard that distant little hum. At that diabolical laboratory where no one seemed to be in charge he heard a noise, he glanced, and he was sure he saw someone moving out of view. At home, in his bed, he could hear that horrid little tune almost out of notice nearly the whole night. He closed his eyes and he was sure there was someone, something, nearby…

He was going to start checking security cameras at this rate. He had a stalker he was damn certain. One with keys and top security cards and passwords who no one else could hear… _Fuck_. He dug his hands into his hair, fingers curling, what the hell was wrong with him? He considered a real goddamn vacation for a second, to his own amazement and quashing the idea knew he must be losing it. This was bad. Was it the radiation from the Z0-RC? Was it leaking? The doctors on base hadn't reported any cases of hallucinations and the techs in the hazmats hadn't complained.

Was it just Yami?

He hit the intercom, paused, and biting his lip released the button without speaking. What good would Mana be? Or Mahado? He tugged at his top drawer, found his work phone and flipped the contacts.

"Yo? The fuck's up?"

"Motou," he grunted into the handset. "Where are you?"

"Just checked into the hangar, stripping down now," Motou elaborated bluntly. "What do you want Minister?"

"Report for mission debriefing."

"Give me forty."

"Make it twenty."

"_Can't_." Motou snapped back shortly and hung up.

Fucking little!- Yami groaned, slapping the phone against the desk and hissing buried his face in his hands. He tried to hold his breath, tried to steady, and temper rising on the back of mounting anxiety knew he was pathetic. He was grown goddamn man. He needed to control himself better than this. God, he strained, he was losing his fucking mind over a nursery rhyme. He was overstressed. He needed to start taking those sleeping pills again.

* * *

(Track- '_Complainte du la Butte Instrumental_' Moulin Rogue Soundtrack)

"Burnt a base down, had a margarita, stayed in a shitty hotel." Motou announced effortlessly as he barged through the door tossing a new stack of documents onto Yami's desk. "That's the crib notes. You can read the rest. Short story- we won. I feel like shit. Crashing now."

"Come here," Yami groaned impatiently as the pilot wheeled round to slink back out of the office, "Motou! Here! _Now!_"

"_What?_" The pilot seethed turning on his spot.

"Come here," Yami appealed miserably, standing from his seat and extending his arm despite how Motou rolled his eyes and inhaled sharply at the ceiling as if he might burst.

They were both exacerbated. Motou's patience was decreasing every day he found that silly Republican, who had recently been foiling Yami's strategies, was on the opposite side of the front line map to Motou's unit. Winter was closing in as they entered the latter half of the year and with it moods were running awry. Even poor Mana found herself feeling fat and unsatisfied at the desk. It was a seasonal thing, they were running ragged, the snow made every battle harder and re-acclimatizing between the hemispheres was not doing Motou's temper any favours it seemed.

"I'm not on demand," Motou grunted. "What do you want?"

"I want to put you over this desk and hear you moan." Yami appealed bluntly.

The pilot paused, hands on those delightful hips, and considered that proposition carefully.

"Fine…" he surrendered quietly. "Don't think though I'm some bitch you can call up like you're ordering delivery." It was a warning and Motou extended his index and pinkie fingers to gesture accompanying the image.

"Dully noted," he appeased, "if you would be so kind?"

"Maybe…" Yugi muttered carefully swaggering forward with some hesitation. He was thinking about something, planning, and Yami didn't like the sound of that at all. "Take your shirt off and lie on the sofa?"

It was a chaise but the Minister didn't think appropriate to correct him. He had bigger fish to fry.

"_Why?_" He began impatiently. The one day he wanted to skip straight to the chase Motou wanted to idle.

"Because," the pilot retorted arms crossing crankily, "if you don't I'm ditching this shit and finding an easier fuck _Minister_. You got to play nice now shut up and give me my turn."

"This isn't a democracy."

"You're right," Yugi grinned cocking his index finger to his chest, "fucking me is a privilege and I rule this autocracy. So lie the fuck down will you?"

"Alright…" Yami sighed. He better get pay back for this. If he they weren't fucking by 15:00 he was lodging a formal complaint.

Head throbbing it wasn't worth the difficulty of arguing further however so unbuttoning his dress shirt and slipping off his jacket Yami laid them briskly over the desk and moved to collapse into the chaise under the stare of a ruffled pilot.

"Stomach," Motou ordered stoutly when Yami sighed to arrange himself and twisting the Minister rested his chin upon his forearms. "Better."

"I do hope you don't suppose you get to-"

"Don't be stupid." Yugi grunted, "like I'd want to, that stick you've got shoved up your ass would make the fit too tight."

"Aren't you charming."

"Oh suck it up." Motou sassed kicking off his ankle boots to pad closer.

Carefully the scamp rested one hand on the back of the chaise by the wall and settled himself into a comfortable position sitting upon the small of Yami's back. Now what was this? Yami was tempted to glance over the yoke of his shoulder but laying his hesitations to one side allowed the younger some permission however cautiously.

Motou's hands, soft finger tips pattering with nails Yami knew from experience were dreadfully sharp and bold, skirted at the small of his back and smoothing his palm down over the skin Yugi pushed his hands up. Yami closed his eyes for a motion as warm skin soothed up his spine to palm without sharpness over the curves of his shoulder blades before straying into the grooves of his nape. Motou's fingers curled over his shoulders, thumbs working up the sides of his neck in a steady rotation into the groove.

"_Hmm…_" He moaned under his breath. That was nice.

"Yeah, not complaining now are you?" Yugi snorted quietly palms dragging heavily back down Yami's spine then up his sides to work those skilled little thumbs into the grooves of his ribcage.

The Minister could bite his tongue for a moment when Yugi rubbed flat handed circles at his shoulder blades but when those fingers fanned out and delicate nails raked the lightest circles down his skin-

"_Oh_," he grunted, "I take it all back. Every word. You have my sincerest apologies."

"That's what I thought." Yugi snorted with a little more giggle than before.

Yami sighed into his arms, eyes fluttering shut, and allowed himself to lull through the buzzing of his mind.

Yugi's fingers worked in languid motions up and down across bone and muscle to pepper him with attentions. Here a little harder, there a little softer, nails raking and palm pushing. The child swirled a pattern down his spine and then, trailing back up without ever ceasing contact, grasped his shoulders tightly and worked palms and thumbs at the tension.

Oh Yami could stay like that forever…

Every bad thing he'd ever said about Motou- Well, they all still stood given Yami didn't throw words round lightly like some strumpet but they were now tainted. For an aggressive sociopath Motou had amazingly compassionate handiwork he could flourish with those masterful little fingers.

Yugi folded one hand over the other in a sandwich pressing as the crest of his shoulders in a weighted but even circle of pressure. Yami let one arm slap from under his chin to brush knuckles along the carpet.

Yami had paid chiropractors exuberant amounts of money but Motou could very well put them all out of business if he left the army. If Motou got much better Yami wold have to consider raising his already gratuitous salary out of guilty gratitude.

Motou leant in then, fingers running between the opposing bones of his winged ribcage, to kiss the back of Yami's neck…

Oh _yeah_.

Yami dragged the sound coming out of his mouth in a stagger. That was damn good. Yugi squeezed his waist kissing across his shoulders.

"You're an angel." He preened arching his back up into those fingers and that sweeter mouth.

"So he says now." Yugi snorted utterly unaffected by the praise as if Yami was biased just because he was getting a backrub (which was ludicrous).

"You don't have to do this," the Minister sighed, "I don't expect such things."

"I don't care," the pilot muttered, "I don't want you when you're acting like a jerk off. I get plenty of those. So don't think this is necessarily for you. If I didn't want to do this I wouldn't. Lucky for you it chills you the fuck out and I just so happen to like doing it."

"You like worshipping with your hands?" Yami moaned quietly.

"I'm cranky." Yugi sighed. "This is calming me down."

"Calming _you_ down?" He chuckled.

"Yeah," he grumbled, "what? You _want_me to stop?"

"Sweet baby Jesus no." Yami grunted lazily. "You can do that all afternoon for all I care."

"Well then," he cackled lightly, "we agree so stop picking on me or you can deal with your own hernia."

* * *

(Track- '_Caravan_' Chocolat Soundtrack)

When Yami finally untangled himself from the chaise he found half an hour had passed with almost no consideration or notice. A little stumped at himself he shrugged back on his shirt and bid Motou to stay on the seat. Yami re-assessed as he rolled his shoulders. He was infinitely unwound, mood improved, but he was out of balance. His primness regrouped but politeness dictated he rather owed Yugi Motou for such an uncharacteristic show of ruminative skill.

"Lay back and take those off." He ordered.

"Why?" Argumentative bitch counteracted. "I've got stuff to do."

"I haven't heard you moan yet." Yami explained planting himself on one end of the chaise grasping Yugi's legs under the knees to drag him onto his back. "It's hardly a proper appointment if I miss that."

"Think you can old man?" Yugi teased. "All energized after your nap?"

"Oh I think so." He threatened hands straying to unbuckle Motou's pants and lying limp the pilot didn't refuse him rather stubbornly he sprawled his hands behind his head. "I seem to remember something about my cock satisfying you?"

Yugi snorted, eyes wavering to the wall, and Yami knew he'd won. Motou offered little resistance from there and given a few moments Yami found himself back inside that delicious, constricting, heat making the pilot squirm. Motou inhaled, eyes closed, and tried not to moan but pushing one elegant thigh back to kiss his chest Yami opened the child in such a way he could move beautifully deeper and-

_"Hmm_," Motou strained softly in defeat, head lulling back.

Yami had won the war. Smirking he allowed himself the pleasure of savouring the feel of the younger body responding beneath him. Truthfully he was beginning to find himself proudly covetous of this 'privilege' as Motou called it. Mad or not the pilot was magnificently lithe and there was an element of immense personal victory to be found in feeling his arousal solely between those thighs. Motou was young, famous, handsome… whatever he lacked in niceties he made up for in other categories women and men alike could go wild over. Yet Yami had him on his back, stringing out moans, taking his pleasure from the nation's ace like Yugi Motou was some common concubine.

Oh now there was a nice thought. As a concubine Yami could gag him almost consistently and never hear a word of complaint about 'human rights' or some such nonsense. Motou was after all a great deal more desirable when not dialoguing or, as Yami had just discovered, giving back rubs.

* * *

(Track- continue track)

"By the way, before you go," Yami elaborated as he straightened his blazer. "Intelligence is finally able to inform me exactly where Atem Horakhty is. They'll be following him like a hawk from now on. At the next deployment I want you to focus on him entirely. Find him. Get rid of him."

"I've been trying." Motou grunted sourly. "You keep deploying me in the wrong spot."

"I think the Republic knows they can take more ground if he doesn't have to face you." Yami shrugged over the insult. "They're using him to their advantage. It's wearing thin upon myself and the Emperor as it is on you I trust. We'll get you your rematch ASAP."

"Any new tech for me?" Yugi murmured a little lighter.

"What? Worried you can't handle him?"

"Of course I can!" He snapped. "I just want to know everything I'm going in with."

"The usual," Yami stiffened. "We've heard nothing to suggest the EY-3 is something you can't handle. Besides you'll have Ryuji, Hitoro and Katsuya for backup."

"Alright," not that Motou would use them in his glorious little rivalry Yami theorised.

"Oh, one more thing," Yami mumbled lacking some of his appropriate formality as he settled into his seat behind the desk and Yugi straightened out the seams of his pants. "Are you going to be attending the royal ballet with the Emperor and the rest of us?"

"That's like tomorrow right?" Yugi groaned. "Argh. That's going to suck tits. See you there I suppose Minister."

"Yes…" Yami coughed, cocking one thigh over the other. Since when had they started conversing after smut?

* * *

(Track- '_Requiem_ _Mass in D Minor_' Mozart. If you can get the full version.)

When he stirred Yami glanced to the bedside clock drearily. 4.32 am. He'd have to be up in less than half an hour then. What was this the sixth time he'd woken tonight to the beating of the rains against the windows and the rattling of the wind? He was too far on edge. He hadn't heard it yet tonight and he was just waiting for it. That damnable song hadn't been anywhere and without it Yami wondered what else, what worse, he had to wait for.

Head tilted to one side he parted his lips heavily and lay limp. He wanted to tell himself he was comfortable but truly he was watching the door to the hallway expectantly more than he was attempting to lull himself to sleep. Where was that cooing little voice he heard in the night?

_Shuffle-rustle-shhh_

Limbs dragged against bedding, thighs on comforter, knees into the mattress, and frozen still Yami realized his opposing side, which felt unoccupied, was rustling. He tried not to allow the racing of his heart to spread contagious to his lungs. How could anyone get into his home? He was in a top security ministerial palace.

"You're not real." Yami whispered.

It moved behind him. The bed sheets ruffled. Yami's hand darted to the bedside lamp and grasped the switch. He flicked it. Nothing. No light, no dissipation, nothing. Head jerking he turned fitfully to that damned dreaded source from where the noise came and there he found-

He wasn't sure. It was too dark to see. He could see it, them, _him_curled on the bed beside him atop the sheets but in the darkness nothing else was clear to Yami except the dreadful fuzzy outline of what appeared to be human. A little human at that with Yugi Motou's voice humming slowly as they lay curled on their side.

Rain pounded the windows and yet everything seemed bitterly quiet inside the room as Yami stared into the figment humming gently towards him. He could see the outline of its face, the curve of a slender hip, the stretch of a pale arm, lips that parted with a silvery edge-

_BOOM  
_

Thunder smashed the windows, lightning struck enough to flash through the parted curtains, and for a second Yami got a glance at it_._

"You're _not_ real."

The light of the storm died off and in the moment of silence, the quietest part of the lull in the wind, Yami Sennen's heart skipped.

It spoke.

* * *

_HINT SONGS  
_Yami- "Some Fun Now" Little Shop of Horrors  
Yugi/Yami- "The Truth about Love [Explicit]" by Pink  
This chapter- "Hell is Empty" by Emilie Autumn + "Blackstar" by Celldweller + "Bad Things" by Jace Everett

Next time: a special someone appears, Atemu gets a chance to save the day, while Yugi gets a chance to end it.


	6. Chapter 6

Okay so I'm officially back on schedule! Weekly updates have resumed as normal. Sorry for worrying you all for a little while there.

* * *

CHAPTER SIX

(Track- Tchaikovsky '_Nutcracker Suite'_)

Yugi was sweaty in his formal gear. Seriously he was surprised he still had enough shambled suit gear in the back of his wardrobe that fit well enough to throw on for tonight. No one would notice though. The media had long since given up expecting his tops and bottoms to match. There was a phase where they thought there was some meaning in his uniform mixing but by now they just called him _'eccentric'_ or _'eclectic'_ which he thought was a nice way of saying _'hipster?'_ .

He'd spent most of the last two days in the gym punching Katsuya. Not the whole time was devoted to beating up his favourite blonde sack mind you. The blonde wanted to improve, which wasn't going so well, but he tapped out after about four hours. Yugi's had spent the last two days from six to six sweating himself to oblivion. He was sure even after scrubbing down in a frantic scramble for this shitty ballet thing at the Royal Opera House he still smelt like a locker room sock.

His body felt great though. His muscles were kinky like that. Toned to shit and loved to take a beating. Sure he could barely lift his own weight but he could out run a cheetah on Prozac. Besides that his fighting style had never been about growling and head butting some lummox in hand to hand. Yugi was way too short to go for brawn as his first defence. From day one his training had been about out foxing men three times his size and twice his age.

His leg bounced, foot rocking from heel to toe in his seat, knee jerking up and down as he sat. He'd be deployed as soon as they got a lock on Atem Horakhty and then he'd smash him. Yugi wasn't sure how he felt about that beyond the obvious excitement but he was happy not to consider the complexities of it. Atem Horakhty messed him up a little. He didn't like it. He was getting sick of having a worthy opponent. He was sick of thinking on repeat about this Republican nobody. It was like constant, sandpapering, white noise.

He fucking hated the ballet, huffing his fringe out of his eye as another menagerie of dolled up high school drop outs pranced across the stage underneath the VIP box. Why was he here again? Oh yeah cause Gozaburo liked showing off the '_family_' unit. It looked good if the big hitters in the Imperial army were all cosy and unified. Did Atem Horakhty have any idea how much time the Imperial army was expending on him? Did he have any understanding, any inkling, that the Emperor and the Minister for Defence wanted him dead as a priority? Poor sod.

"Stop it." Sennen ordered sternly under his breath hand clasping hard on his bouncing knee. "Behave."

Yugi rolled his eyes while Sennen's never wavered from the stage. Another seat over Gozaburo was tossing back his tumbler and grunting at one of his hag faced Ministers. As far as parliament went Yugi was definitely fucking the best catch of the group.

He leant out a little, gazing round Sennen down the row to the rest of their box. Mokuba was paying attention the little sod but old Seto was on that damn phone of his no doubt playing with stocks or mechanics or specs or something. Seto had no patience for art. Slumping back Yugi found his knee bouncing subconsciously again.

"_Motou._" Sennen warned beside him irritable but surprisingly composed.

The Minister must've been sleeping better he was looking healthier all of a sudden. All those prim mannerisms Yugi couldn't stand were back and ignoring him Yugi continue to tap his foot against the floor.

"Don't act like a child."

"Make me." Yugi retorted superfluously tucking at his hair.

"Don't tempt me." Sennen whispered leaning in against his ear.

Yugi straightened, eyes wavering to that well set face to find Sennen smirking to himself._ No?_Lords be damned the Minister did have some mischief eh? What did you know! He wasn't expecting that from polite, proper, Minister Sennen. Even if they'd been doing the nasty in private a public function like this was different. He expected Sennen to be on his best behavior but the old dog seemed a little calmer today.

Yugi might have to start giving him more backrubs if it improved his temper so much.

A quick glance back over the stage proved to the pilot that nothing of great interest was going on. Just some chick in a swan suit leaping round encouraging bestiality or something and if you'd ever been to the National Grand Prix you'd already seen plenty of that in your life. Another noted look over the Emperor proved their company was either thoroughly loaded or totally distracted and apathetic. So fingers skirting over the hand paper weighting his knee down Yugi drew Sennen's palm along his thigh with both of his own.

"No." Sennen chuckled sharply tugging at the wrist Yugi clasped his fingers round as their eyes met. "Not here."

"Why?" Yugi teased.

"Some of us are cultured enough to enjoy the show."

"Some of us are offering a much better show for free."

"Pfft," Sennen snorted, "I pay your wage. You're expensive."

"The Emperor pays my allowance: I'm bankrupting." He grinned leaning across the arm rest to settle his mouth closer to Sennen's ear. "I'll make it worth your while if you distract me."

"You'll survive till tomorrow."

Groaning Yugi threw his head back into the seat. Fucking Sennen Killjoy. Smirking, the Minister squeezed his fingers round Yugi's inner thigh before retracting it to return the palm to his arm rest.

* * *

(Track- '_Takeoffs and Landings_' the Ataris)

"Stop fidgeting!" Anzu slapped at his elbow hard.

"I can't help it." Atem whined straightening his jacket for the third time as the elevator clicked past the tenth floor. "I'm nervous."

"You're nervous?" She laughed. "Don't be silly! What are you nervous about? You spend all day getting shot at!"

"I'm from no-man's land," he groaned, "my family ran a farm for four generations. My Grandpa doesn't even know we have a President! Let alone that I'm meeting them!"

"You've gotten three medals this year and you haven't met the President yet?"

"They keep posting them to me," Atem shrugged. "I'm on duty constantly lately."

"The price of being good I guess." Anzu sighed. "Look, don't worry, you'll be fine."

"Yeah but why does the President want to talk to me?" He grumbled. "Doesn't he have generals for that?"

"Oh I don't know maybe because you're currently the face of the army, national hero, maybe something along those lines." She teased dryly.

He sighed deeply. He didn't want to do this. He liked his job. He liked helping people and fighting for a cause. New mechs, medals and missions were okay because they furthered what he thought was a good thing but Atem didn't need acclaim. The media made him wet his pants, pats from the generals made him blush and a '_casual little chat_' with the President? Cue cardiac arrest.

When the elevator opened Anzu gave him a look over, grasping him boldly by the tie and tugging it straight almost choked him. Smiling she patted his pectorals and jerked her chin to the side like he was some foal to kick out into the ring after a quick dusting. Atem felt like a gladiator heading off into the arena unarmed.

"Aren't you coming?" He panicked. _Help! Mayday!_

"No, he just wants to see you," she shrugged as if it were nothing. "Just go."

"But what am I supposed to-"

"Just be yourself." She stressed. "You're charming. Go on. You can do it."

"I'd rather duel Yugi Motou with a can opener."

"If the budget gets cut much further you might have to," she joked, shoving him hard in the shoulder. "Now_ hurry up. _Didn't your Mama tell you not to keep the leader of the free world waiting?"

"I'm going! I'm going!" He grumbled forcing his lead heavy feet to shamble out of the elevator.

She left him then, abandoned like a newborn, and swallowing stiff as the steel doors closed behind him Atem Horakhty tried to think big manly thoughts. What was he doing here? He was elite sure, he'd gotten lucky in some big fights, had survived a duel or two with Yugi Motou the scourge of the Imperial army but he wasn't really a power pusher. Atem didn't make the big decisions. Atem had talent but no credentials.

He remembered, stomach sinking as he wandered curiously over the carpet, that he'd never really passed high school properly. He'd jumped in the back of a ute on his eighteenth birthday to go join a group of other brash guys heading off for basic training before his exams. What did the President have credentials in? Atem could barely keep up with mathematics. Sure he wasn't stupid by any stretch of the imagination but he wasn't a prodigy or anything like in the empire where apparently Yugi Motou had been bred for combat like some war steed. Poor kid…

Atem quashed the sympathy. He couldn't help but feel the prickle of it. Some part of his heart ached at the memory of Motou's voice screaming hysterically at him. Motou who was willing to die to win and run into the rain when you brought up his childhood was somehow tragic. Atem knew that given a second, a single opportunity, Motou would kill him but he couldn't help but feel that the Imperial wasn't totally responsible for himself. In some ways Motou was a victim which meant that endlessly heroic part of Atem, which not even he fully understood, wanted to save Yugi Motou somehow.

"Ah! Atem Horakhty I assume?"

He jolted. Almost fell over. There went years of combat honed skills alright.

"_Sir!_" He chimed slapping into a salute.

"Ha!" the President laughed thrusting his hand out. "Never mind that soldier. It's a pleasure to meet you. Dartz."

"Pleasure's mine," he stumbled again grasping the man's hand perhaps a little to firmly to shake it so hard the elder laughed again and made a little mockery of his force.

"Not nervous are you Horakhty?"

"What gave me away?" He joked.

"Well please, don't be," Dartz placated. "The only terrifying person in this building is my wife. You make it here alright?"

"Yeah, great food here," Atem confessed. "Better than what I get out in the desert anyway."

"I'm sure. Shall we grab a seat?"

"Uh sure," he shrugged, allowing himself to be tugged along by the shoulder. "What's all this about anyway, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I thought it was best you and I met so we could just…" Dartz struggled to form the wording, hands sweeping to try and catch the proper adjective as he took a seat across from Atem at a low coffee table. "I really want to make sure we understand each other."

"Okay?" Atem blinked leaning his elbows into his knees.

"Pegasus told you about the new deployment yet?"

"No?" He blinked. "Just that we're going to Siege City in a couple days."

"Yes, exactly," Dartz snapped his fingers. "You're going to join forces with the main contingent there. The Imperial army is sending in a mass force as we speak to take the city. If they do we're rather fucked. Pardon my language."

"Heard worse," he dismissed with a weak grin. "They can't take it though surely? I mean that place is locked up tight. It's _Siege City _for a reason."

"Yes, it is," Dartz sighed. "It's the gateway to the quickest route to the Nation's Capital. The Empire gets it and Gozaburo could send ships of thousands of troops down right to our doorstep at congress. Luckily the past thirty years it's been one of our most reliable structures. Problem is that doesn't mean as much as it used to."

"I don't understand…?"

"The people don't want to fund a war anymore." Dartz confessed. "Especially not a war we're losing. They're scared and because of that a lot of our weapons of war are falling into disrepair. This is a democracy and I can only convince people to pay so many taxes before they get fed up."

"Fair enough," Atem shrugged, "I mean no one likes war. Really I…" he paused catching himself.

"Hmm?" the President prompted. "Yes?"

"Just…" Atem considered that this was perhaps the best and only chance he might ever get to put forth his agenda. "I don't know much, I'm a simple guy, but I can't think of anything more detestable than all these people dying. I joined the army because I wanted to stop it somehow. If there's a way we could just put all the guns down and talk about this I'd do anything. I mean surely Emperor Gozaburo isn't crazy enough to like this either?"

"As admirable as your sentiments are Mister Horakhty I think you might be disappointed to find he is." The elder sighed weakly. "I've conducted politics for that man for ten years and I can tell you if there is anything I know about the Emperor it's that he is totally unreasonable. As far as he's concerned we're all rebels usurping his lands. To him war is something of a noble pastime. Why not? In the Empire they're very good at it."

"But that's nuts," Atem leapt. "You mean to tell me he doesn't give a shit about people dying?"

"If he does he cares much more about what he believes we've stolen from him." Dartz shrugged warily. "That however is why I am so keen to speak with you."

"What do you mean?"

"Listen Atem if I can be blunt for a moment," the President prefaced, leaning in. "We might lose Siege City soon. If that happens we've almost lost the war. We need the cavalry. I honestly believe however that if we can not only force the Imperials off but beat them hard when they next knock… I think that would stir back enough national confidence to put up a real fight. With more recruits, more equipment, we might be able to get the Empire to take us seriously and if that happens then even Gozaburo might _have_ to reason with us. He's not going to back off though if we look so vulnerable and the people at the moment don't really want to keep fighting."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"I want to send you and a unit to help Siege," Dartz repeated, "then when the Empire shows up I need you to thrash them. Not just hold them back but win us a proper victory. Give them a real kick in the bollocks. Then maybe I can get us back on track to stopping this."

"I…" Atem's whole world spun at the new weight on his shoulders. Well, this was what he had always wanted wasn't it? A chance to stop the war? "I don't know if I could thrash them…"

"I'll get you in contact with Pegasus." Dartz swore passionately. "Anything you need we'll throw at this. I swear to you."

"I'm not…" Atem fumbled. "I'm not really a general or anything-"

"No," the President acknowledged, "but kid _whatever_ you do it _works_. You've been holding them off. Everywhere you are we endure so much better than we have for the past four years. We've been losing stupendously since Motou showed up and now you're beating them back somehow. I don't care if its divine intervention or brute corruption however you're winning I will back it. Just help me kick their ass at Siege."

"I…"

* * *

(Track- Grieg '_In the Hall of the Mountain King_')

"Minister!"

"Hmm?" Yami startled almost dropping his mocha across the keyboard as Mahado came barging in. "What the blazes is it?" He suspected immediately that Motou had gone on a shooting rampage or worse the office had run dry on cocoa which could very well start a revolution.

Panting the General seemed to remember himself. Bowing, saluting, fluttering across the carpet with his ever present files as he ran mumbling through his normal pleasantries apologetically. Putting back the mug Yami threw his arms up.

"Mahado," he ordered while the man rambled, "_Mahado!_"

"Yes Minister?" He inhaled finally taking a proper breath as Yami forced him to stop.

"What the devil is wrong with you?"

"Urgent information from Intelligence Sir," he cut to it striding closer to toss a couple of hazy satellite photos over Yami's desk aligning them clumsily, "the Republicans are deploying a mass force towards Siege City."

"How did we find out about this?" Yami blinked taking the nearest hazy spec. "There aren't satellites over this air space…"

"The units tailing Atem Horakhty followed him to the Republican capital. It's only because of that they were able to uncover plans for him to be deployed with a major battalion towards Siege. A concealed fly over with sat equipment confirmed it this morning."

"I'll be damned," Yami mumbled irritably. "Fucking Horakhty wants to make a stand at us does he? How close is our army from Siege?"

"They weren't scheduled to move in for another month Sir. They're at least ten clicks away." Mahado mumbled obviously frantic. "Do you think it's possible he intends to consolidate the unit at Siege and come at our units in the region?"

"Now that would be Republican stupidity at its finest." Yami snorted. "No, I should think the President is throwing everything he's got behind Siege to keep it. Even their newest show pony it seems. Regardless there's a lot of good it'll do them."

"Sir they have the strategic advantage. If we're to siege the city after the arrival of those new units there's no way-"

"Oh yes there is," Yami grinned with a chuckle, "following Horakhty has given us a prequel. The Republic wants to surprise us by outnumbering us. Now we know what they're planning it doesn't change a damn thing. Tell the Siege bound army to pause. Buzz the surrounding bases and tell them to send troops to consolidate the forces. We'll send more units from HQ to reinforce the drained bases."

"But Sir-"

"I'm not done," he trilled firmly over Mahado, "have Motou's unit prepped. I want them carried to the Siege bound army ASAP. See if the Crown Prince can't have Katsuya, Hitoro and Ryuji equipped with electric pulse lasers. Back Motou's unit with another two from Special Ops. I want him to be presented with Atem Horakhty on a platter when our forces make contact at Siege and then I want Motou to execute him. We clear General?"

"Yes Sir!"

"Good," Yami grinned, "now stop panicking. This is going to be exciting. Are we done?"

"I apologize Minister," Mahado mumbled embarrassed, "I… I allowed my emotions to run away with me."

"Good then go clean off your underwear and get to it," he chuckled taking the mug back, "don't look so stressed. It's a couple of rebel rats in a barrel and now we know their hand. You need to relax more Mahado."

"As always Sir I am eternally grateful for you calm guidance."

"I'm sure," he grinned dismissing the man with a flick of his wrist.

This was the perfect way to thrash Atem Horakhty publically. Motou would just love the theatrics of the opportunity. Yami could see him beaming already. Just as well they'd had the Republican trailed so closely in preparation for his assassination. Now they had the Republicans secret plans in their hands. It could've been quite a disaster for the Imperial army to take a beating from the Bohemian forces at Siege. Publically it would've cost them big, raised Republic morale even which Yami suspected might be the whole intention.

"Brilliant aren't you?" Heba supposed drifting from the window to Yami's desk, bending tight at the pert hips to bring those dangerous lips to the Minister's ear. "This is why I want to become one with you."

Oh dear. Yami straightened round the sudden lump in his throat. He had rather hoped this little monster would give up and skulk back to his hole. Yet here Heba was, teasing and nagging by his window, bright sharp eyes following Yami's fingers across the desk for what was perhaps the third time in so many days.

"None of that," Yami ordered messaging his mug weakly as he made the effort to avoid eye contact. "I'm working."

"Think of it though," Heba prompted, "this would be a perfect chance to move large numbers of troops across the map. Think of what you could do with _that_excuse sweet thing."

"Must you call me that?" He grumbled, eyes darting.

"What else should I call you?" Heba grinned wickedly hefting himself up onto the edge of Yami's desk, chin pressing into his shoulder, crimson eyes darkening. "_Majesty_maybe?"

"Go away," Yami snapped, spine coiling. "I've told you-"

"I know, _I know_," he whined eyes rolling back sourly, "sweet thing won't play."

"As we discussed: I'm not interested." He repeated with emphasis. "So you can take your lovely propositions and bother someone else."

"Aren't you tough," Heba grinned sultrily, "so _mean_ too."

"Go away." Yami ordered as he struggled to maintain that ruse of steely, aloof, composure. Tilting his shoulder he glanced away. He'd just pretend didn't see the boy at all, he told himself, he didn't have to listen to him. Eventually Heba would give up, surrender, and waddle off again maybe even to do his goddamn job for once. "I've no patience for you."

"I'm on your side." He repeated softly in that lush tone. How many times had he professed as much? "Not like them. I'm really on _your_ side Yami."

"No," the Minister grumbled twisting back in his seat sharply, "you're a greedy little nobody who wants their own way like some spoilt child now potter off."

"Or what?" Heba laughed teasing. "You'll have me escorted out? Really now Minister that would be difficult, don't you think?"

"_Go away._" Yami ordered.

"I'll be here." Heba promised again tone jumping back to that serious little whisper. "When you're ready sweet thing I'll be here to help you."

* * *

(Track- '_Smile_' by Lily Allen)

"_Motou,"_Yami sighed, "a little focus please."

"I can't focus," the pilot grumbled back over his shoulder trapping a beaming smile behind the irritability. "I'm fucking excited."

"Yes I can tell," he murmured hoarsely, shit the boy was tight. "I only ask for a fraction of your attention while I'm balls deep inside you."

He knew Motou wasn't paying proper due attention somehow. He wasn't vocalizing the way Yami expected of him, wasn't squirming the way the Minister ached for him to…

He could use the pilot but it was somehow less satisfying without Motou purring up at him. Yami was a jealous creature by nature. He desired to be desired if he could manage it. Half the appeal of taking Motou was having the wily little minx begging for him. He found, surprisingly, that he needed that to climax properly. To have the boy on his hands and knees, Yami's palm running along his bare navel, was only so pleasurable when Motou's cunning mind was otherwise occupied. Doubtlessly the boy was off with the fairies dreaming of the grand battlefield he would soon occupy, raining vicious retribution down upon some poor Republican, taking a city…things Yugi Motou must've quite loved fantasizing about.

The Minister wouldn't mind so much, Motou's mind was a strange place and it could wander where it pleased, but this would perhaps be their last occasion to interlope in his office for perhaps a month or more depending upon the scope of the campaign. Yami wished to savour the feel of this body before Motou went and blew a limb off or some such in his fussing against Atem Horakhty.

"Alright," Yami sighed, lurching to a stop seated totally within the boy. "Last warning or I will be very cross."

"Jesus what more do you want from me?" Yugi grunted on his elbows tossing his fringe back.

"You'll have plenty of time to daydream about slaughtering the innocent," he answered blandly, "I want to have _all_of you here underneath me writhing like a harlot as usual."

"Argh," the pilot slumped forward, forehead against his wrists luscious pert arse up. "You want me to stare longingly into your eyes as well Minister?"

"Crush the sass." Yami retorted palm cracking abruptly along the curve of Yugi's backside. The pilot jumped, gasping, his fingers flexed but better than all of it was how the child clenched round Yami's aching arousal. "_Oh_…_Much_ better."

"-_Hnn!_" Yugi groaned low as Yami exploited the momentary tension between the boy's thighs to thrust languidly, tasting the drag of the pilot's clenched muscles along his cock.

"Yes I think that's perfect." Yami chuckled smacking his hand sharp and brisk into the tender skin once more. Motou slumped forward, burying his face in the cushions of the chaise, swearing lowly. "I didn't think I could make you any tighter."

"Ngh," he squirmed.

"Now I have your attention don't I?" The Minister chuckled smugly.

Yami, devious little madman he was at heart, intended to drive his advantage home now he had it and all the better he did so before Motou found a way to turn the tables. Drawing back his hips he seating himself, steady on his knees, leaving just the head of his arousal within the pilot. It was a trick, an underhanded trick, to use a flourish of supreme skill to rock just a fraction rubbing…

"Nhh…" Motou hissed white-knuckled.

"What was that?" Yami slid forward slowly, bottoming out the full length inside the pilot's strenuous form.

"_Oh._"

"Want something Motou?" he withdrew teasingly, hands tensing vice like round the limber hips trying to press back into his.

"_Fuck._"

"Hmm?" He jerked in hard, hips meeting the boy's, forcing another tumbling of little sounds past the pilot's tightly clenched teeth. Hands securing straining hips as Motou tried to arch he slipped once more taking the heady sensation of fullness with him. "Can't hear you."

"God…Oh Fuck me!"

"Well that is some praise," Yami chuckled.

"I swear you fucking- _N-Aah!_"

Grinning the Minister tugged the boy's hips into his bucking set inspiring Motou to break into the most deliciously ruined sound which had at one time in its evolution probably been English.

"Now then," he steadied himself into a rhythm, the sprite moaning round him weakly. "We shan't ignore me anymore will we? We'll focus when we're getting fucked won't we?"

"_Uh-yuh-_" Yugi purred into the seating a little too delirious to answer.

"I'll take that as a yes."

* * *

(Track- '_I'm Still Here_' by Vertical Horizon)

Atem slapped his hands together, the screens flared to life, ignition spreading through the EY-3 as he loaded himself into the cockpit. His cheeks were cold from the run from the barracks, eyes stinging with sleep, but he was flushed to consciousness in the early dawn and it felt good to be alive. It was like rising for harvest. He was ready for today. He could take whatever unsuspecting onslaught the Imperials could send shooting at them.

He rolled it over in his head quickly as the comm. and radio buzzed up with the other prompt screens. He scrolled through them, brought up the two maps- one of Siege City, one of the terrain surrounding the walls, both of which the EY-3 would respond to in sync with his sat nav. He checked the artillery, the loaded weapons carriage in the back, made sure his response suit was plugged properly into the eject seat and the monitoring systems for his physical condition. Okay…

So, he inhaled, the Imperials would be out of the woods today. Thermals had got a hit last night to suggest they were definitely coming. HQ had last counted their force at sixty units expecting the normal defences of Siege and now Atem had snuck into the city with his backup the Imperials would be coming to face a force that outmanned them. Strategy said you needed to outnumber the defender three to one for assured victory now the defenders would outnumber them two to one. If everything went right Atem could help the Republic win themselves the first decisive victory in years.

He had pictured it: the Imperials arrived, they sent the troops out from behind the wall and kept them coming. The Imperials would realize soon enough they had more than they'd bargained for and hopefully that would induce enough panic for the Republicans to manipulate a victory. The point was that had to do it fast. They could withdraw today to hide behind the walls if something turned but if the battle extended into weeks it would be harder and harder to win. The Imperials had more arms money, more civilian backing, more propaganda… Atem couldn't compete against that indefinitely. If the imperials sent Motou and his tag-alongs their way it would get messy real fast.

"Lieutenant I'm patching you through to General Ishtar," a techie informed over the comm. "Please standby."

"Rodger that," Atem prepped starting the rollers of his mech to move himself into closer position to the city gate. Ishtar was the woman who ran Siege year in year out. She was pretty smooth from what Atem had seen of her in the last three days of prep.

"Horakhty," Ishtar flared onto his screen, she looked ill. "I'm sending you the security cam feed from the city wall. We have a problem."

"Problem Ma'am?" Atem paused.

The cam feed filled the central screen of the EY-3. Atem's stomach fell through his pelvis and coiled into a knot

That was not sixty units of standard mechs. Atem's eyes darted across the sweeping camera shot trying to multiply by rows. Ten, twenty…eighty…ninety…Oh_ shit._

"Crap!" He swore viciously under his tongue.

"Looks like the Imps have overcompensated." General Ishtar commented grimly. "You have a contingency for this Horakhty?"

"I…" He gathered himself fast. Fuck. "We didn't plan for this Ma'am. HQ gave me the latest updates. They had sixty units max."

"Well they've got an estimated one-eighty mixed units on my crops right now." Ishtar smacked bluntly. "We've got one-twenty. Any suggestions Lieutenant Hero?"

Atem strained his eyes over the security feed scoping the field full of Imperial mechs lined up nice and straight to come raining hell upon them. His throat dried. They couldn't win that outright no matter how many mechs they had. Any time the Imperials had a number advantage it showed. This… Worse was the riling guilt. How had they known? Was Sennen just that smart? If he was then what chance did they have? And General Ishtar, who had been raised in Siege, and who had her family here and who had devoted her career to protecting this city yearly with little respect, less prestige and dwindling funding now thought Atem Horakhty was a useless poster boy.

"We can't go out into that." Atem reeled. "We can defend though. We've got more than enough to hold them off."

"Of course we do." Ishtar grunted. "We're built for it. You'll have to take the President back your mediocre victory however."

"Doesn't matter." He dismissed unsure how best to convey to her his sincerity. This wasn't about him, he'd never wanted it to be, just…. "I don't care. The troops up?"

"Yes." She wasn't impressed. "Re-line for order-"

"Wait!" Atem caught her, hand raised, frowning. "Wait…I…"

He strained his vision over the field as the Imperial mechs re-arranged. They were changing formation. He could see mechs coming forward in the line-up, four of them, he tapped his hand against the control pad trying to enhance the image. Did he know that paint work? They were four diverse builds he vaguely recognized, the fourth wasn't a mech he knew but the paintwork was familiar and the insignia…

"Horakhty I don't have time for yo-"

All four of them were mounted with the same piece of machinery. Atem racked his memory as he watched them take a firm stance in the grass on the security feed. _Thinkthinkthink!_His brain itched. He- Yes! Yes! That was-

"Pull back!" Atem hollered suddenly as it hit him. "Everyone needs to pull back from the main gate!"

"Horakhty what are you blathering about?"

"General that's Motou's unit!" He stressed to her prompt screen. "Those are lasers and in about thirty seconds we're going to be royally fucked! You've got to order a retreat from the wall!"

"What?" She frowned. "Horakhty that wall can survive an assault from three hundred units of mixe-"

There wasn't any time. Atem watched, horrified, as the Imperial's let loose. Sure enough it was the same dreadful beam of light but not just on what must've been Motou's new mech but also on his three tag-alongs. He saw the camera sizzle to try and catch details in the light explosion, he saw the fields burst into flames as the edges of the joint beam licked the corn, he-

_BOOM_

The battlement of the wall Atem was mounted on shook. He twisted in the cockpit. Ishtar started screaming in his comm. link. Light burst through the fortress wall, sending chunks of steel and molten electric light running like a knife back through the units assembled on the other side. The beam hit buildings. It petered out but Atem could already hear the chaos, see the disarray and through the ventilation smell the hints of fire on the air.

"_PULL BACK! ALL UNITS WITHDRAW FROM THE OUTER LIMIT! PULL BACK TO SECONDARY STATIONS!"_

* * *

1 Yes, I'm dreadful, you're not getting any explanation of what happened to Yami at the end of last chapter.

2 No you didn't miss anything. Heba was given no introduction. So you have to ask yourself: who is he? What does he do? How does Yami know him? What are his loyalties and interests?

3 Dartz is the Bohemian President. Pegasus is their Secretary for Defence (so Yami's equivalent)

4 Lots of Atem this chapter and next which won't be odd. Atem is a vital part of this story, he is one of the main characters and his interactions with Yugi are not to be downplayed. So don't worry if you're falling in love with him cause I've got big plans for our hero~

5 In war there are certain general rules of thumb. During most periods of history the attacker is more likely to win just based on weapons versus defensive strategies. However in siege warfare it's the complete reverse. To defeat a defender hauled up in a fortress you usually need to outnumber the defender three to one.

Next Time: Yugi an Atem settle the score, the Knights prove themselves and Yami has a chance to return Yugi's kindness.


	7. Chapter 7

Hey everybody~

* * *

CHAPTER SEVEN  
(Track- "Fastest Girl in Town" by Miranda Lambert)

"Retract your stabilizers and let's go!" Yugi ordered stoutly. "Don't activate in the city you'll get caught!"

Katsuya, Ryuji and Hitoro might have the electric pulse lasers now but they didn't know how to use them anywhere near as deftly as he did. With their safety restraints on they couldn't fire the pulse lasers on their mechs unless they were strapped to the ground to counter the recoil that Yugi worked round. Yugi could fire his while _moving_. Whatever the constraints the equipment would be in the long run for them it was advantageous if only in quickly blowing open the can on the Republican city.

Yugi hated Siege. It was boring. A lot of scared rebels hiding in their badger hole while the Imperials tried to lured them out. He had no patience for it. He didn't like fighting people who weren't really there to crush. Today however Yugi was going to rip this city open. He was going to make the Republican motherland _bleed_.

"Back units commence fire!" The overlooking General coughed excitedly. "Front units proceed behind Motou!"

"That's our cue," Yugi grinned, kicking up the thrusters.

They'd smash through the gate to the city like it was Troy. Bring down civilians and soldiers in a swipe. Yugi normally would quite enjoy the pleasure of obliterating a cornered army but today he had better temptations on offer. Katsuya, Ryuji, and Hitoro would follow him in and for once in their careers be useful. They would cover and assist in corralling Atem Horakhty once Yugi found the little worm so he could destroy the latest blue army hero.

Yugi intended to send Atem Horakhty back home in a box by sunset.

Yugi crashed through the main gate, fifty mechs and three elites in hot pursuit, as his laser charge pinged full. He had already flipped off the safety protocols in the mech and flipping the switch the Republicans in a frantic haze just beyond the gate where thrown asunder by another flash of manmade lightning. Yugi skirted through them, Katsuya just on his tail, and switching to general radio Yugi could hear the poor fuckers in hysterics. So much for their silly little resistance plan. No more wall to hide behind now was there?

"Horakhty!" Yugi cawed sing-song over the general clamour. "Come out come out wherever you are!"

Mechs were streaming in behind Yugi. The soldiers on the battlements where shooting viciously at the forces in the fields as they advanced, the soldiers in the streets were trying to win some mech on mech combat as the city was stormed, and darting round them all Yugi kept his eyes open.

"Come on hero boy!" He teased. "You don't come out I'll have to play with what I can find!"

The laser pinged charged and unrestricted by a stabilizer Yugi didn't have to stop moving for a second to let it off amongst the Republican mechs who had more than enough problems on their hands already. His second blast ran along the upper battlements in a sweep hitting the backs of the units trying to shoot into the fields who were blindsided to him. Yugi would make himself as hellish as he had to in order to draw the Republican out.

"Alright," he sighed, "better make the sky fall then!"

Yugi pivoted on his rollers, locking in a sky scraper, and didn't hesitate to shoot. Civilians would've been cleared into bunkers under the city or inside the central HQ of the city. If they weren't then the Republicans were irresponsible and stupid with their populace. He fired. Lightning ruptured the building, smoke exploded out of it to plume up to the sky and in just seconds it began to grind and crumble. Adios.

"_Stop it!_"

Yugi locked on, sailing down a street along the battlements, Atem sounded frantic. Seemed he wasn't immune to Republic panic. Why should he be? Their little master plan was falling to shit and now it was time to pay up for naïve arrogance.

"I can't hear you!" Yugi cackled letting off another shot into the battlement mechs burning mounted canons into molten steel. "Come on out Atem!"

"_You don't have to do this!_" Ah, there he was red mech and everything. So that was the EY-3? Charming. _"You're in the city! The General will negotiate a cease fire!_"

"Sorry kiddo, not my game," Yugi snorted. "See I've got orders from Minister Sennen to wipe _you_off the map and take this city by force. So you can take your white flag home!"

"_You can't do this!_"

"Whine bitch moan!" He charged locking the Republican in his sights on the upper rung. "Come down here and fight or I'm bringing the wall down with you!"

He didn't give Horakhty a chance to respond.

* * *

(Track- continue)

The world gave out under Atem. Sheer dumb luck mingled with panicked skill kept him from back flipping the mech and winding himself in his harness but the others on the ledge didn't fare so well. This wasn't what was supposed to happen. Swearing he hit the ground running and kicking up his boosters darted into a side street to lead Motou off. The troops would think he was abandoning them he was sure, especially in this panic but he needed to do something. Motou wasn't giving him a choice. The boy would blow up everything he could get within his sights unless Atem took him out. He didn't want to but he might have to.

Didn't these people understand the concept of peace? Did Motou understand you could settle things with talking? Live and let live? How shitty was the Empire that they all wanted to be in the land of the free? How shitty where Motou's parents? What kind of monster was Sennen?

Atem better win this.

The bank to his right burst into flames. Swearing Atem turned round it. Who the fuck gave Motou that damn laser? How come he could use it like that when his lackeys hadn't touched theirs since blowing the gates in?

Atem's mind whirled. He had to think faster. He flipped his systems and started charging his secret weapon. It wasn't a laser, he'd need to get in close, but if he could just get Motou off guard at the right angle he could make this quick. If he could immobilize the other pilot maybe they could take him prisoner and put him in a psyche ward somewhere.

"Horakhty where are you?" General Ishtar railed on the private comm.

"Leading Motou away from the troops so we've got a chance to re-fortify," he grunted back. No time for manners the Imperial was right on his tail as he turned another corner. The only advantage Atem had while his weapons charged was that he knew the city while Motou didn't.

"Keep at it." Oh, well, that was good. Ishtar agreed with him on something. "Get that laser off him before he sets the whole city on fire."

"Rodger Ma'am!"

"_Coward!_" Motou railed on the general radio. "_You really want to die running away Horakhty?!_"

Good. He was getting angry. Atem lowered his speed just fraction, let the distance between them decrease, the sensors told him Motou was closing in and he was so close to charged. He moved the mech's hands. Time to break out the best part of the EY-3.

* * *

(Track-continue)

Holy shit! Yugi had to throw the boosters into reverse. It was only years of honed instincts that taught him to pull back and put just enough distance between he and Horakhty to dodge. The Republican turned, mid-flight, and ripping out some ungodly weapon from a side canister mounted on the edge of his EY-3 tried to slash back at Yugi.

They gave him a proper sword! Yugi almost laughed, heart racing, as he took in the specifics. Atem Horakhty's mech had a fucking_ sword_. Like some kind of Excalibur with a scabbard, hilt and a double sided, sharpened blade about a meter and a half long. Well fuck Yugi to Sunday! That would make this way more fun.

He had to calculate. He needed to stay out of reach. Yugi lurched back, swerved round, and started to get the dimensions of how Horakhty could move with the blade. It was a nice piece of machinery. Yugi fired the pulse laser, made them both spin out, ripped up the tar on the road and turned it molten. The fires he'd set off were now igniting other buildings as they crumbled into each other. Yugi was this close to building a ring of fire that might contagiously engulf the whole city. Fire crews wouldn't be able to assist while he and Atem were destroying the streets. Which meant the one short on time here was Atem.

He kept on him. If Yugi could hold them balanced for a while, let the fires burn, then Atem's own panic might win him the fight. If the Republican let his passions run away with him he'd make a stupid mistake with that sword.

* * *

(Track-continue)

"_Damage west side-"_

_"-Fire's spreading to east block!"_

"_-There's too many of them at the gate!"_

_"Where the fuck's Horakhty?!"_

Atem could hear the jumble on the general radio and the private comm. The blue army was losing stupendously while Motou kept him corralled in burning streets. Atem couldn't block them out. They were dying_. Shit! Shit!_ He swiped, ducked under Motou's artillery and tried to come in close for another jab. The Imperial swiped with those claws, they scrapped him, and thousands of volts of raw electricity ran briefly through the system forcing Atem to leap back. Motou was keeping those electric claws of his active and that laser seemed to charge way too frequently. Worse still when Atem dodged it the beam hit the city. There wasn't going to be anything left of Siege at this rate.

Panting Atem tried to parry. He was sweating now. The air coming through the ventilation to the cockpit was hot and uncomfortable as smoke plumed up to obscure the sun. His body ached. He could see now why better men than he had died and known fear at the hands of a sixteen year old boy. Motou was incredible, there was no denying, but the power was in how little he hesitated, in how little he cared for his own safety, in the sheer disregard he held for normal human restraints like conscience which ruled Atem. Yugi couldn't be reasoned with. Atem was learning that.

He scrapped the pavement with the tip of the blade and drove in for the stab.

"_Got ya!_"

Motou caught it, electricity pulsed through the EY-3, the systems freaked warning lights and kicking up his thrusters Motou started pushing Atem backwards.

His sensors flared a proximity warning as Motou forced them back through a wall _into_one of the burning buildings.

"You're crazy!" He railed, twisting the sword as he caught his senses. It took a lot to get the EY-3 to react to him under the stress of the electric shock but he broke free.

* * *

(continue)

Yugi had him in the fire regardless. He started corralling Atem backwards. In the confined space Yugi had the advantage. There wasn't any space for Atem to swing that blade of his around anymore. Atem switched to artillery, Yugi skirted out of sight, obscured in the smoke and they crashed back together hard.

Yugi pounded him, got between the arms of the mech and started digging his claws in. The EY-3 held up better under the electric shocks but Yugi could still rip at its systems. A few good hits against the struggling unit, a chance to disarm him, and he could do this…

Time to finish this.

* * *

(continue)

Atem's cockpit was getting hot. He switched off the ventilation and went onto stored oxygen before the smoke filled his lungs. Motou had him in a bad spot but the pilot wasn't stopping to secure his own vents. Atem was praying he could hold him back till he passed out but he was running short on time. His sword was useless in one hand.

_BEEP BEEP!  
_

"_Fuel line cut._" The AI chimed.

The EY-3 started getting sloppier. Atem started struggling desperately. Motou had cut the main artery on the leg between the amour plates. He tried to line up his artillery but the camera was no good for aiming in this condition.

Atem felt the left leg jam at the ankle as the rollers broke inward on the rubble. Yugi was sparing no punches now.

"_This is going to hurt!_" The Imperial warned.

He switched the electric claws back on, digging them into the leg of the EY-3. With the fuel line exposed electricity ignited internal systems. Atem's whole cockpit started going ballistic. The main screens of the cockpit started splitting, warning lights flashed everywhere, the oxygen level faded from screen as monitoring sensors broke.

"Nononono!" Atem panicked kicking out with his fingers sweating against the handles. He was trying desperately to use everything he could before the EY-3 gave out on him. "Nono! Don't do this to me baby!"

"_Emergency shut down._" The AI chimed evenly. It was all there was left in the tank.

The lights in the cockpit hummed down. Everything started to die, sizzling, round him and Atem felt his heart spiral up through his throat. The screens were dead, the controls didn't respond and kicking out blindly Atem kept piloting even though the machine didn't move. No! No!

"_Sorry Hero_," Yugi chirped coolly over the radio, "_orders are orders. See you on the other side."_

Nonono!

Atem couldn't see it but he heard the laser go off.

Then roof followed after it.

* * *

(Track- "Disco" by Town Hall Steps)

Yugi hadn't thought this through in his moment of wild righteous fury. The building was vaster than he had expected. He was lost and now the structure was unstable. He'd lost track of the ruins of Atem Horakhty and the entire battle shifted to the back of his mind under survival instinct. Just like survival instinct turned off so Yugi could win his survival instinct trumped that vicious urge of his when the foe was gone. It was a dangerous balancing act that might cost him seriously this time.

Yugi hacked. _Fuck fuck fuck!_Fire, rubble, hacking smoke and molten heat searing at the paint work… Yugi threw his forearm over his mouth and struggling shut the vents. They responded but reserve oxygen wasn't loaded in excess. Yugi had about twenty minutes to bolt or suffocate in the burning building.

He checked the nav. He had no lay out of the city loaded into the mech maps. They'd never broken into Siege before but Yugi was not going to die like a rat in a tube. He had tricks. Where were the others?

Loading…

_Bingo!_

They bleeped up onto his corner map window and Yugi moved the sonar-esque tracking of their signals into his main screen. 30 degrees North-West. Assuming they weren't complete morons then they would be on a clean, ventilated, street. Yugi just needed to reach them. They'd be his beacon out of this inferno.

Weight crunched overhead. This building was going down fast. Time to put throttle down to the metal. He internalized the info and he started darting in what he could make of a straight line.

"_Oxygen at 80%_" Fucking helpful AI voiced chimed. "_External heat rising._"

Yugi bolted. He really hoped what he'd just shoved wasn't a weight bearing support that would bring the whole building down on top of him. The heat shouldn't hit him in the mech at least. He could skid this thing over magma if he was careful. The paint would be ruined though.  
_  
CRUNCH-HZZZL_

The building rumbled like a groaning dragon. Yugi could practically hear his drill sergeant, the one from when he was nine, shrieking in his ears: _GO! GO! GO MOTOU! GO!_

Yugi stumbled, the mech lurched over its own frame and Yugi rolled it across the concrete shaking hard in the restraining harness. _Ouch!_ He struggled to get the mech back onto even footing. He _could_ do this. He was_ not_ getting lightheaded.

Some joker in the streets let off another bomb. The structure gave another moan. Yugi heard a crack. Oh no… The roof gave out four floors or so up, Yugi moved- the roof above _him_ gave out. Stone, concrete, steel and eight floors of fire came crashing down atop him. Ejecting wouldn't do him any good, oxygen would dwindle, Yugi had about twenty seconds to think before the weight hit and the mech got the shit beaten out of it.

* * *

(Track- continue)

It was all a blur to Atem. He wasn't sure how he'd survived. The floor he was on must've been faulted. Motou brought the roof down on him he knew but then the entire building seemed to come down as wounded by crumbled pieces of screen and steel Atem tried to unstrap himself from his harness in the ruined cockpit.

If he had unstrapped himself at that second he would've died because immediately after the rest of the building gave the weight forced the flooring under Atem to give right into the sewer running under the city. It was only the harness that kept him in place well enough to ensure against further injury. He squirmed then. He had to move. Smoke was billowing down into the sewers and he was going to run out of air here in the cockpit.

He was upside down in his seat however or rather the mech was upside down and trying to work against gravity while bleeding down over his face Atem made a mess of his escape. Despite how much it hurt he made himself find the survival kit behind the seat. He was bleeding badly. There was glass in him through his response suit. Breathing deep he forced himself to open the emergency lock on the cockpit and lean out.

The light of the fire told him he was suspended ten feet or so over the floor of the sewer tunnel and Atem began to wonder if the methane in the air might catch alight too. Worse if he jumped with the rest of the mech tumble after him? He didn't have many options. He jumped.

He hit the ground wrong. Something in his right ankle exploded into pain.

"Fuck!" He screamed through his teeth.

The whole world round him was hellish. He did the only thing he could. He channelled his grandfather and, starting the mental mantra, made himself get up. _Keep moving Atem Horakhty_. He had to keep moving. That was the only way out of this. He didn't have time to worry about fecal matter in his wounds, or bleeding, or broken bones… there was a fire raging over head and asphyxiation which would've loved to take him silently. Atem Horahtky was _not_ dying like a rat in a sewer. He needed to go now.

* * *

(Track- "Exile, Vilify" by The National)

Silence…

White, gooey and rich.

Yugi was aware of that perfect white darkness and then of himself. Then he found the way his eyelids were glued together. Then the tension of his spine and the smell of antiseptic.

Then the heart monitor.

Finally: blitzing pain.

"_Ow fuck_…" Yugi hissed, twisting his head on the cotton. Shit fuckity fuck.

Yeah. He was alive.

Groaning low and even he forced his lids apart only to close them again sharply. Fucking fluorescents… He pressed his knees together, sighed stiffly, and curling his toes Yugi assured himself he still had them. How many times had he done this? Woken up in some god forsaken hospital checking he had all four limbs?

Next question: enemy hospital or friendly?

"Motou?" Hesitancy asked.

Yugi tilted his head, pried one lid apart and found Katsuya? The blonde stiffened in the seat beside the cot and given he didn't look handcuffed Yugi supposed he was in friendly care. Looking to his opposing side Yugi tried to raise his arm, ah, Morphine his oldest friend.

"Where am I?" He mumbled, arm slumping back onto the bed.

"Siege hospital," Katsuya answered, "or the big one anyway…The others got kind of wrecked in the fighting."

"Where are the Republicans?"

"Kicked em to the curb," the blonde grinned, and when Yugi's stare didn't excite he pawed at the back of his neck to continue more formally. "We took a lot of their troops hostage, civilians were given the option to leave or stay under Imp rule and a chunk of the army escaped."

"Atem Horakhty?"

"Wasn't enough of his mech to recover." Katsuya added. "Looks like you got him."

"Good," Yugi laughed weakly, wincing a little at the effort. "_Hnn_… How long have I been here?"

"Day and a bit," he shrugged, "bout. They drugged you up pretty good."

"How'd I…?" Yugi strained, frowning, "I remember the building coming down. My mech!-"

"All cool!" Katsuya assured. "We got it out. You were sandwiched in there bad but the techies think they can fix it."

"Well that helps," he snorted weakly voice hoarse from the tiny exclamation, "what happened?"

"We followed your signal when you didn't come back on radio," Katsuya explained, "traced you back to that fire."

"You…?" Yugi blinked.

"Oh, well, and Honda and Otogi ya know." He batted at his neck.

"You…" His insides stopped functioning. Twenty minutes of oxygen, the fire, no ejection seat. Yugi had been in bad scrapes but he had dragged himself out of them. This time not so much. "You lot saved me?"

"Course!" The blonde piped keenly. He laughed. "Couldn't just leave you there, I mean, you're a jerk but you're not a bad guy. Sides, you'd do the same for us. You always say you'll ditch us but you wouldn't really. Right?"

"Yeah," _no_, Yugi lied lost. "What are you doing here?"

"Was my turn to keep an eye on you," Katsuya answered resting his forearms on the edge of the cot. "Otogi and Honda are sleeping. Figured someone better be here for when you woke up or else you'd beat the shit out of some nurses."

These retards had saved him. He was going to have to start watching them more. He might actually have to be nice. Katsuya smiled.

Yugi tried not to overthink it. At least with Atem gone some niggling part of his subconscious was finally satisfied enough to allow him the peace to rest. He tried to lull his heart back down and found that strangely the morphine helped. Though, that probably wasn't so strange when Yugi gave into it for once rather than fighting it.

He shuffled down a little and blinking back into the cold white ceiling scrapped teeth over chapped lips while he contemplated where to turn himself next.

"We took Siege right?" He mumbled at Katsuya.

"Yeah," he chirped. "Epically."

"You know what that means?" Yugi sighed with a chuckle.

"Nah?"

"They're going to try and really take the Republic next," he whispered, "if we have Siege we've got a life line to their capital. We just tipped the war into desperate straits for the blues."

"Really?" Jou sounded entranced by the concept.

A forty year war they might see end in their lifetime was now a reality. The difference between them was perhaps in the detailing. Yugi didn't think the war would end for another five years but Katsuya probably assumed it would be shorter now. Likewise Katsuya was probably excited by the concept of victory. Yugi? Not so much. He didn't want them to win the war.

If they won the war he was useless.

Then…

* * *

(Track- continue)

Yugi had stitches but no burns this time. Still, he hurt gloriously from over exhaustion. When the morphine wore off he wanted to cut part of his body off. Could you sign up for voluntary amputation? Maybe?

Gozaburo was overjoyed. Yugi caught a little bit of his speech on the radio when his little ragtag team brought it into his hospital room to play cards over the end of his bed where his feet didn't reach. When Yugi winced, trying to pull himself up, Otogi cringed with him and clutched his ankle through the blanket while leaping like a well-trained dog Katsuya scuttled up to help the smaller into a sitting position totally forgetting his cards. Yugi actually had to thank him awkwardly.

The gist of it was that the Empire was going to be exuberant for a while. They were going to fortify Siege for themselves and milk this for all it was worth. Gozaburo wanted what he wanted alright. Yugi would probably get another medal for this.

They were going to move Yugi to ICU back home in the Imperial capital apparently. Take him home with the reds for the red carpet treatment. He didn't think he needed ICU time, not really, but it probably looked better on the news if he had a brief stint there. Just the concept of being trapped in another hospital exhausted him. He longed just to be left alone in his actual private residence for a few days till he felt back together. Then he could slip his response suit on anew and report to Sennen for another conquest to carry out. He hated sitting still too long.

* * *

(Track- "Can't Take my Eyes off of You" by Frank Sinatra)

The Emperor was thoroughly rubbing it in. They may not have won an exceptional victory but they had certainly wounded the Republic greatly. Taking Siege was only too easy and next time they closed in, assuming the Republic populace didn't panic over their lack of security now their fortress city had been cut asunder, they might just take the cake. With careful planning of course. Either way it had been all over the news, a propaganda crazy blanketing of their _'glorious'_ thrashing of the _'petulant rebels_' (Yami didn't remember the exact phrasing it wasn't his department). Hell they'd even heralded how Yugi Motou had risked his own life and been gravely wounded destroying a Republican _'war monger'_ called Atem Horakhty.

Yami truly felt something of genuine sympathy for poor Motou when he was dragged out of the ICU early to be primped up and paraded round at one of Gozaburo's militant extravaganzas. Courtiers, generals, and an assortment of old men who smoked like chimneys were invited to the palace not a work week later so the Emperor could gloat. From his vantage, champagne in hand, Yami had watched Motou receive an array of burly slaps with those grinning sharp eyes dulled in pallid skin.

The Minister lost sight of Motou during the speeches and toasts, drawn into conversations he didn't care for, till the dancing started anew and escaping Yami had a chance to skirt the outside of the ballroom. Kaiba was being presented with another peacocked girl to dance with in hopes of stirring some passion in the Crown Prince outside of a laboratory. It was a lost cause but Gozaburo wanted grandkids.

"You should be out there swirling with pretty girls," Heba whispered beside him as he strolled, "Gozaburo stole the whole course of your life. You know he did."

"That's treason right there," Yami mumbled sipping.

"No," Heba clarified quietly shifting closer, "you're the_ rightful _king."

"Rightful or not I'm not the king."

"Long live the king," the smaller trilled tipping back his own fluted glass elegantly with a little cock of the rim to Yami. "We can take it all back. We can reclaim your birth right."

Yami stained his eyes across the ballroom, looking for an escape, to avoid discussing any further formalities with Heba. He couldn't stand the way the little crimson flourish whispered such dark, itching, biting truths at him. Heba was a cold shower, a slap of reality, and Yami so often in his company wished to escape the vulnerability it induced.

"You know I'm right." Heba whispered smugly. "You hate Gozaburo and Seto is a mongrel. You're the only sane, responsible, person in this whole government and you deserve better."

Yami caught sight of Motou suddenly, in the far corner, curled forgotten in an arm chair with a glass of champagne abandond on the floor beside him as the pilot's head lulled into the armrest of the seat.

"Later," Yami dismissed, "bother someone else."

"I'll see you at home," Heba warned.

Closing in Yami approached the pilot lounging in the seat with something of a critical air. It would be an embarrassment if Motou were to collapse from a little too much to drink. As the Minister for Defence Yami would rather not have rumours of drunkenness spread contagiously through the institution of command. It would only give the generals something else to complain about.

"Quite alright Motou?" He prodded coming to stand over him.

"Go m-way…" Yugi mumbled into his upper arm, turning his nose into the suit sleeve.

"Lord, Motou," Yami chided. "How much have you had?"

"One and a bit," he dazed back, "damn _mhh-_ucking painkillers…"

"Painkillers?" The Minister twitched. "Whatever for?"

"The stitches," Motou lapsed honestly, snuggled into the seat unattended. "They cain."

"Typical!" Yami spat irritably. By the look of it Motou's liquor was not agreeing with his medications. No doubt the pilot should've still been on a drip back in the ICU resting rather than trying to pretend to dance and be bold at some godforsaken party. "You ought to go home Motou. You look dreadful."

"Hmm…" He mumbled ignorantly.

"Motou," the Minister sighed, tilting in to take his arm in one firm hand. "Motou where do you live? You need to go home. You're in no condition to be out."

"Hm-dunno," Yugi yawned.

"Christ almighty," he groaned putting down his glass to take the pilot's other arm in his, "come on. Up you get."

Yami was not by his nature dreadfully compassionate. He did not roam out of his way for any individual sympathetic or ridiculous but perhaps by virtue of their time together he couldn't help but feel a tingle of responsibility for the lithe little body lapsing in the corner like a broken toy. Motou had fewer friends than he, fewer relatives, and so perhaps it fell upon Yami to try and do something with Yugi Motou if the boy would not do it for himself. The younger was alone, like Yami had so often been, and someone needed to look after him when he was in no fit state. Why it should be the Minister there was no decent answer in Yami's opinion but if he didn't take up Motou no one at this drunken silly little fiasco likely would.

Looping his arm round the boy's waist Yami hefted him onto uneasy feet, pulling a thin arm round his own shoulders, to try and escort Motou.

"Where…?" The boy mumbled glazed over.

"I'm taking you home," Yami sighed, "you can stay with me tonight you're in no fit state."

"Mkay…"

He was light. Yami knew that already from experience and when they escaped into the elevator un-harassed and unnoticed the Minister surrendered his propriety to ease. Hooking his arms under Yugi's knees he lifted the boy up into his arms to hold across his chest. The pilot's face nodded off into his shoulder and Yami felt far too comfortable with the stance. He'd thrown Motou over his shoulder this past year, piggy backed him, but never carried him like this. Still the weight was familiar and Yami may as well have been depositing the pilot on his desk to fuck for the hundredth time.

Instead however Yami managed to manoeuvre the child into the passenger seat of his car. As he clasped the boy into his seat, hands fumbling over him, Yami had to sigh. He began to reach back and grasping at his elbow Yugi Motou leant his face into Yami's upper arm as if he were dizzy.

"Don't leave me," he mumbled senselessly, Yami doubted Motou even knew who he was.

"I'm taking you home." Yami answered dully at his silliness. He felt awkward pushing to try and uncurl Yugi's fingers. "Let go. I've got to close the door."

"Don't leave." Motou rasped sharply.

"_Shh_," he urged shrugging free, "you're out of it. I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

1 Scared you there for a minute, didn't I? How is Atem I wonder?  
2 The Bohemian Republic is nicknamed the 'blue army' like the Cyprus Empire is nicknamed the 'red army'. It's pretty common in military history, especially in civil wars, to come up with things like that. In Russia in 1918 they had the White and Red armies for example.

Next time: Yugi stays the night, things change, and some things stay the same.


	8. Chapter 8

Sorry I haven't been able to answer many emails this week guys. Finishing major assignments and exams and trying a new type of therapy is taking it out on me over the next few weeks. Either way I think this chapter might make it up to you~

Special hint songs at the end of chapter!

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHT

(Track- Narnia Soundtrack '_Only the Beginning of the Adventure'_)

Yami left his car outside the front door on the gravel drive. Behind the security fence and the bloody big wall surrounding his _'house'_ (if one was to use a gentler word) he wasn't concerned with vandals. The problem was getting Motou inside and onto a bed safely. Lucky thing the pilot was light as soft down pillows or Yami would've given up and left him in a hallway. Yugi was out cold by the time he got him down onto the mattress of a guest room and sighing Yami fumbled over his face to check the pilot's temperature. Prescription painkillers and booze were a heady combination Yami knew from experience but the child was tough. He would be surprised if a little lightheaded-ness would take Yugi Motou down.

Deciding the child was as well as he could be Yami continued the brisk business like motions of stripping Motou's boots, gloves and jacket. He slipped off the boy's belt as a personal comfort thing, Yami so hated to wake up with them pressing at him, and throwing the blankets over Yugi dimmed the lights low to leave him in peace.

Yami didn't really think about it. From bringing Motou home to making him comfortable he tried to block. It was a natural, thoughtless, kind of suppression of the mind. Yami was accustomed to ignoring his moments of personal weakness or at least leaving his humanity unexamined. He was vaguely aware that in the bluntest terms if it had been anyone other than Motou, Mana or Mahado he would've left them in that chair (Heba was too clever to end up in such a position). Yet it was Motou and somehow that pushed the boy over the line to deserve Yami's consideration. Perhaps it was the backrub Yugi had so courteously given him, the tender press of those hands, that had softened the Minister's opinion of him but somehow Yami felt he liked the boy enough these days to make sure… Well, he believed now at least that Motou didn't deserve to be left sick and hurt in some chair like garbage. He deserved someone to take him home and tonight that was Yami.

"Poor thing, Gozaburo ruined him too." Heba sighed into the door frame where he had followed and waited. He'd beaten Yami back it seemed. "I doubt he's really capable of human affection in a proper sense. You understand that don't you though sweet thing? He's kind of like you."

"Bed now I think." Yami sighed unfolding his tie as he waded from the bedside to pass Heba in the doorway.

Heba glanced over him to the bed for a moment, pausing, and then deciding upon something resolved as always to follow Yami down the darkened hallways to his quarters. Why on earth did Yami Sennen allow Heba inside his home at all? The boy was insufferably determined.

"He's a weapon, you know, less than human."

"You and he would get along then I think," Yami teased dryly as he threw open his bedroom door and shrugged at his blazer. Chuckling sweetly, distant, Heba sunk to sit at the edge of the bed waiting for him.

"I bet he'd help us." Heba suggested carefully glancing into his lap as he turned pretty, perfect, fingers over each other. The resemblance he held to Yugi Motou was eerie. "If you asked him I can almost guarantee he would give his loyalty to you over Gozaburo. What has the Emperor really given him but strife? Lonely boy can't be any happier than you are inside yourself my lonely sweet thing."

"You…?" Yami coughed, supressing the thought, turning back to the glass of the dresser as he stripped. It wasn't worth it.

"He would." Heba answered regardless. He knew what Yami was thinking or at least he could glean it. "He'd help you."

"I wouldn't ask." He dismissed.

"You know," the other murmured rising delicately to creep behind him fingers fluttering over his shoulders, "I'd like to be one with you, not like Motou is, but in the old way. You'd complete it."

"I know you think so."

"I know so." Heba insisted nonchalantly. "It _has _to be you. You are the first, the last and the greatest. Really, you're the only viable option."

* * *

(Track- Pan's Labyrinth _'Official Original Inedit_' or _'Mercedes Lullaby_')

"Hey…"

Yami groaned into the pillow at the soft sound, that voice, and dismissing it twisted onto his back in the quilt as weight touched the edge of the mattress.

"Go away Heba," he mumbled.

"Heba?" They whispered, taking his shoulder in uncertain fingers. "Sennen…um…"

Yugi Motou hesitated on his knees on Yami's bed and blinking dazedly Yami's groggy mind began to piece it all together turning him to realize it was the pilot glancing down gauntly at him in the dim dead light.

"Motou!" He lurched, a little startled, shirking up onto one elbow as he blinked out sleep. Motou sat back on his arse on the quilt Yami remained underneath and twisting his fingers in his lap the pilot struggled.

"Hey," he repeated softly.

"You're…" Yami dragged his hands through his hair stupidly. "You feel any better? More to your senses?"

"Yeah," the pilot grunted, eyes on his lap. "This is your place right?"

"Uh…" Yami tried to compose himself however naked he felt. He was not one to invite guests over. "Yes. I wasn't sure where you lived. You were rather beyond giving directions."

"I know…" He mumbled tucking at his hair as if it embarrassed him greatly to acknowledge as much. "Thanks for…you know. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Sennen shrugged lopsidedly, unsure how to respond. Given the light of day he might's sassed Motou but the child was so uncertainly gentle about the proceedings, genuine, that Yami was not sure even his bitter heart could find it in him to taunt.

"Thanks." Motou repeated.

"Are you quite alright…?" Yami hesitated. Motou clearly wanted to say something and to his own surprise Yami wished to urge him along.

Yugi was clearly a physical being, hardly the most confidently eloquent and leaning into his strengths rather than his weaknesses, vulnerable enough already, leant into his hands and bending forward fused his lips with Yami's. Gently.

_Oh_…

Yami's insides twisted.

Yugi drew back a steady breath later, eyes darting down and decidedly finished the pilot began the awkward motion of clamouring back.

"No!" Yami hissed grasping hard at the boy's elbow to wrench him back. No, no, no… "Come back here."

Motou- _Yugi_(Yami tested the name inside himself) hesitated but legs stretching underneath his gait allowed the Minister to pull him and arrange him till the pilot was folded along his side. Yami didn't quite know what he was doing dragging the brat into his side, arm cradling his neck and back, hand on his hip but yet…

"Let's do that over." He ordered softly. Yugi nodded permissively, three tentative fingers skirting the line of Yami's jaw as it turned to his.

Yami had kissed this boy a million times but it was different when he was trying to be gentle. Letting go, being less posture and more _himself_ was so incredibly unwieldy, intimidating, without being able to hide round Motou's biting teeth. Yami found himself holding the boy tighter in his own self-conscious show of nerves, Yugi's fingers still on his cheek, their lips very cautiously mingling. No, damn it, this this wasn't goin- Yugi's shuffled closer, knees brushing Yami's quilt covered pelvis, pushing up toward him. _Oh thank Christ!_

Yami folded him in as Yugi shuffled toward him, the boy's sprightly fingers tapping cautiously across the sleep softened side of the elder's face as they played at being vulnerable. Draw by curiosity Yami slid his tongue along lightly chapped lips and with more thought that he had ever witnessed the pilot exhibit Yugi paused before allowing him in.

God the boy tasted different. _How?_ Or had Yami just never noticed that inkling taste bubbling over his tongue after never taking the time to seek it out? He contorted onto the elbow under Yugi's slender neck, lips straying to kiss into the grove of the pilot's shoulder properly tasting the pallor of the skin as slender fingers fisted in his hair. Perfect yummy gorgeous boy…

So tender, so small, it was amazing.

Yami wanted to know suddenly what Yugi Motou felt like round him when he quivered like this. Hand on his hip solidly, Yami tried to direct Yugi onto his back, and twisting on the quilt the smaller shuffled into place. Spun up in the sheets, arms round the little one, Yami found he felt younger in that unsure and stupid way as he kicked the blankets down barefooted so he could be body to body with Yugi.

He didn't really notice he was bare chested till Yugi noticed. Leant over Yugi, kissing him, Yami twitched ever so slightly when a light palm skidded over the back of his neck, round his shoulder, down his clavicle and along his torso. Now they needed to fix this, there was a rule somewhere in politics you never got caught with your pants down unless everyone had their pants down.

"Let's get you out of these," Yami decided lips trailing across Yugi's cheek bone to pluck the edge of his ear as his digits accentuated themselves on the boy's hip.

Yugi's hands fell from Yami to his own waist to draw up a hemline. Yami found himself actually watching the mantle of a limbed cage round the pilot. Awkwardly trapped by the space and the angles Yugi shuffled the shirt overhead, wincing weakly from some wound or another to turn his hands downward to his own hips. It was nice in the strangest way. Nothing sharp in Yugi showed, something quieter instead shone out cautiously, and when he was quiet and bruised and tired like this Yami didn't feel they were so unalike.

Yugi kicked his pants the last fraction off his claves and when Yami's eyes strayed they…

Hmm.

Now he felt old. Not lusty really, not yet, no just sympathetic. He lay back down on his side, Yugi on his back, the pilot's head nestled under his chin. Yami could see the lines of newest stitching, yellowing bruises and a thousand thin white lines of scarring forming flecking fault lines down a pale complexion. They didn't detract anything, they were relatively minor remnants most of them, and the body in its complexity was still stunning Yami had just never seen it so exposed and in such detail.

"You are beautiful," he muttered, and ignoring him on the surface but swallowing it up inside Yugi rolled onto his side arms wandering to wrap the Minister so Yami could hold him a little tighter.

The hell where they doing? Yami brushed back a golden fringe and cupped up a pale face to kiss. He forgot about the office for a second and Heba no doubt wandering the mansion sleepless with wanderlust and all knowing. Just for a few factionary moments he was going to let Yugi Motou be the only thing that existed.

"Lay back."

Yami actually had proper lube in his bedroom. Wouldn't that be a treat? He snorted to himself. At a glance he knew the door was open, just a smidgen, but to close it meant leaving the mattress raft where Yugi was sprawling himself. That might mean breaking this spell and so, in himself and always devious, Yami consented to let Heba steal a glance if the other occupant was so struck in his midnight wanderings to become a voyeur. Yugi didn't need to know however. No all Yugi Motou needed to do was stay quiet and soft and look up at him like that till Yami's insides shuddered.

Yami shrugged off his sweat pants, probably the most informal things he owned, and delicately parted the pilot's thighs with both hands to station himself between them. So warm. Yugi lowered his knees, the bend of his legs tempted to rest round Yami's sides as the elder smoothed his palms along bare skin with distant appreciation. It wasn't as simple to Yami as roaming his fingers along the tendons when there were so many details to grasp. His strokes broke at odd moments to trace tiny scars that speckled the skin or the lines of a bone. Yugi didn't hurry him. Yami rather liked this submission there was something about the freedom to linger which made him feel desired between those thighs.

Yugi's fingers tapped along Yami's wrists as the Minister inspected a drawn in navel, a tender bruised belly, and grasping the man's hands Yugi tugged appealingly.

Yami wasn't exactly sure what he was doing but he hunched and that seemed to be what the boy wanted given how he cupped his face to pressed kisses along supple patches of Yami's face. The boy tangled his hands where the hair thinned on the back of Yami's neck, lips following the line of his jaw, very sweetly. Yugi was warm, that seemed to be all Yami was aware of, and drawn by it he shivered. There was a tingle that ran up his spine at all this. Something bubbling up that was spurred by how _inviting_ the petite pilot could be. Yami squeezed the hips underneath him, Yugi buckled up into the touch, and between the fluttering kisses and the acceptance the Minister was aware of the hot veins running to his hardening groin.

_Inside_, Yami's mind urged, and he reminded himself to breath normally past the odd staccato stop-start of his heartbeat. Never shifting, face still in Yugi's hands to be peppered with tiny lingering kisses, Yami drew his hands between them resting all his weight about his knees.

"Easy," Yugi warned weakly, "I'm still-"

"I know," Yami promised, eyes shut. "We'll go slow."

Gentle, careful, the pilot was still wounded and yet he continued to want… Yami inhaled carefully. He reeled himself back. Stroking, lathering, himself in one hand as the equally slimy set of twin digits squirmed into Yugi's tight passage. Yami found himself almost jealous. He wanted to be inside the boy _now._

Yami knew instinctively the groves where he wanted to place his hands. Forearms under Yugi's thighs, knees over his elbows, palms grasping at the hips… it pressed the pilot's shoulders into the bed, raised the small of his back off the mattress, and meant Yami could thrust deep in total control. He didn't realize he was biting his lip till Yugi kissed it, looking for comfort, and when Yami gave it, returned the kiss, his pelvis connected completely between the other's tangled legs. Yugi's fingers twitched on his neck in response, the pilot exhaled harder through his nostrils nearly shaking and Yami watched with intent fascination as Yugi's lashes fluttered shut.

Oh, now that was a dangerous chain reaction. Yugi flexed his thighs round him, the small of his back resting in the grasp of Yami's arms, and the Minister found himself close already. Disastrously he ached to take the boy hard but driven to contain himself Yami found his chest tightening.

Yugi's straightened his back, seemed to think, eyes closed and hands fumbling to Yami's biceps for support. Lashes parted a moment later and making contact carefully Yami rested his forehead against the pilot's.

"Please?" Yugi whispered awkwardly.

"Yeah…?" Yami checked.

Yugi nodded, their noses bumping, and inhaling his gasp through gritted teeth Yami started slow, languid, _painfully_ delicious, motions.

Yami didn't want to move. He didn't wish to so much as twitch except to slide his hips rocking down into the pilot as he pulled the boy's hips to his. Tiny, unwavering, thrusts while he leant over the other with his back aching from the curve and his chest constricted round a pattering heart. Yugi panted into his cheek, warm and wet, and Yami was afraid nearly to waver in his stance for fear of changing something.

The child was hot. Searing, molten, slippery heat Yami took openly. It made him fucking tense. He grit his teeth, cock almost agonising as he melded them together. Yugi arched to him but somehow Yami loved keeping him suspended in such a way the pilot could barely move in his grasp. Hell the boy could do little else but pant and mumble and receive Yami's thrusts willingly.

Slow, nice and slow, or else something would break but… _Oh fuck_… Yami's bones seemed to coil like living steel trapped in a coffin. Taking Yugi _slowly_ was nearly too much. He needed this boy wet, stretched, filled and compacted underneath him. Yet it wasn't that Yami was really afraid to have him rough but rather making himself gentle was somehow more erotic. Yami was vulnerable, it was terrifying but then so was Yugi in such a way that Yami wanted to melt into him completely. He didn't want the boy to ever be able to shut him out or be rid of him. He wanted sanctified permission to stay here between these legs. Gorgeous, molten, runny…grunting Yami's teeth dug into his bottom lip. They were stupid, broken, thoughts from a sexed up mind but for now he meant them.

Slippery thighs, skin on skin, bottoming out inside slowly and just barely making tiny Yugi shudder and shiver. Yami swallowed, burning, and pulled the child's hips to his fractionally harder. It was a struggle to keep control but he was compelled to retain his authority. '_Trust_' was the word that mingled up provided by his mind. He couldn't break out, rough, entreated to maintain this torturous intensity. Yugi, sweet thing, was wounded and he wouldn't hurt or harm the brittle precious body malleable between his fingers but _fuck_ Yami could feel every pulsing vibration of the boy like this.

Yugi's lips came apart, fingers coiled round the taunt tendons in the Minister's upper arms and he shuddered another sound. _God_…_Fuck, _no_, ah_…Yami's lips opened, following suit, inhaling raggedly. He was going hoarse. He…Oh… Gorgeous tiny thing… long parted limbs and ruddy warm skin and liquid fire secret confines that enveloped welcomingly and… _Fuck…_Yami panted.

"Mine," he managed. He hadn't meant to test the word out loud.

"_Yeah_," Yugi gasped tightly, his own limber body wound so tense that it contracted longingly every time Yami thrust into him.

"Yeah?" the Minister mumbled dumbstruck and heady in the sweat.

"If…" the pilot paused, shaking, to murmur watery sounds as their hips connected in another slick motion. "Yeah, if you want…" he seemed to want to say more but was embarrassed?

"Yes, yes, yes," Yami stumbled over his syllables. Shit that made him hard. "Yes. Mine."

The boy was coveted then or at least Yami, burying himself to the brim, yearned viciously for him and for this.

"New rule," he rasped, "no one else. No one else here-" he accentuated himself grinding, "-with you or…God help me…"

Yugi didn't respond with anything greater than to writhe squirming with him. Yami's speech lacked all venom by now he was _this_ close to breaking. He was going to shatter righteously to a million pieces torn asunder he was certain.

"_Big_," Yugi whispered needy and pleading, "_more_…"

Unspecific it might've been but it was glorious none the less. Yes, yes, Yami had never wanted this boy to pry open his mouth and speak more. That there could be a day he wanted Yugi Motou to part those sweet, yummy, fucking lips and… _ah_… Yami lost the thought. Puff. Gone. Vanished.

He entangled his arms round the slender, sheened, body and sitting back pulled Yugi into his lap. The child was so light, so easy to manipulate, and instinctively those fucking perfect legs tightened round Yami's waist and pale arms anchored round his shoulders. Yes, good, good boy… Yami cupped the back of his head, face buried in a strange limbo between the child's cheek and shoulder where he was hotter still, and arms steely he rocked the panting body round his cock.

Gravity was fucking miraculous Yami decided throwing his head back to moan like a wounded animal while Yugi buried his face in his clavicle. Yami's arms however never wavered in cradling the smaller body to his, never faltered in cupping the back of Yugi's neck by the scruff, and slumping forward from the chin Yami found his lips bruising the boy's temple. Tight, tight, calescent and slick-

"_Ah!_" Yami's breath rattled in his chest, burying his face in the child's cheek as he growled hoarse and hard arms locked viciously round one perfect, gorgeous, luscious lithe… _Godgodgod_…"_Ngh-uck-ah_…"

Yugi's fingers laced in his hair, dug into his shoulder blade, knees bumping his ribcage, slippery thighs tensing impossibly tight and then the child started moaning rapturously and_ fucking_…God, so perfect, yes… Yami came harder, holding him fast, with every one of those strung out little noises rasping into his ear.

Heaven, fucking_ Heaven_.

* * *

(Track- Chocolat '_Main Titles_')

Yami might as well have run a marathon given how his heart thumped like a rifle going off in his exhausted and overwrought ribcage. Slumped, more akin to a gutted fish than a grown man, he lay sprawled up at the ceiling trying to breathe. Eyes sighing shut it was going to take some time to compose himself.

However Yami Sennen had crackled to pieces Yugi Motou seemed to have melted to butter after the Minister had oh so carefully withdrawn to place him gingerly back on the bedding. Resting beside him Yami found himself momentarily crawled over by the pilot and yet was only vaguely aware of it in the proceeding clatter filling his frontal cortex. So hot…Yami hadn't cum that hard in ten years… He was ruined.

Glancing, the ratta-tat-tat of his heart finally declining with the tide, he found the boy weapon sprawled across him. Little Yugi was-

He was…

Heaven forbid… Yugi Motou coiled snug against him in his sleep, nuzzled under Yami's chin and clung to the envelope of his embrace like a bird preening in a cage. His nose butted at the tendons in Yami's neck till he became utterly slack against the Minister. Breathing slow, soft and even till, ever so cautiously stealing a glance, Yami found the most appeased face laying idly against his clavicle. Asleep Yugi seemed half his age all rosy lipped and smooth hued and _content_.

Oh God, content?

Head slumping back against the pillow Yami Sennen's whole inner universe spun with the tumble taking place in the nether regions of his chest where his heart had been shacked. It was a bizarre sensation to lay with the smaller, much younger, man's leg sprawled over his. To have the warm weight of another human body paper-weighting, sandwiching, him to the bed was not as unromantic as he imagined.

Like this Yami could look at him, hold him, be simple and honest because Yugi, evidently, had already made some kind of choice in exposing this vulnerableness. Yugi Motou felt safe enough, preferred him enough, to doze off against him and cling to him. Yami's chest thrummed, fluttered, and he wasn't quite sure what exactly he was feeling. Yugi hardly had any scent cloying over him, he almost smelt of nothing, clean and plain and rung free of all the mud and blood. Yet when Yami tilted his nose into his hair he caught a whiff of sweat and perfume, a kind of primal sweetness, that made the younger all the more appealing.

He didn't like people very much as a rule. Mana and Mahado he quite recommended but generally speaking prolonged touch of any nature he found almost offensive. People were too bolstering, too clumsy, too messy and after his climax he'd so often found himself feeling rather disgusted with the state of the bed. As it was he didn't feel dreadfully cleansed but he didn't want to move, not an inch, for the oddest fear of disturbing the perfect chemical and physical balance of how they were laid out.

Yami was _comfortable_.

More than that, delicately squeezing, he found himself stunned that under all that unlikeable crassness Yugi Motou was startling affectionate and tender when it struck him to peek out from behind his spite. His finger twitched to brush at a stand of hair along the back of Yugi's neck and lodged up against him, murmuring unconsciously, the pilot nuzzled in through a flexing sigh that drove Yami's hand to settle firmly against the back of his neck till the smaller settled.

They had to be up in six hours. Yami had an office to shamble bitterly off to and Yugi, with the cheek Yami rubbed his thumb over and the curved shoulder he traced to the hand lightly curled in over his heart, would be back to himself. Common sense would make them resume their work face but this was not, not at all, like any of those wild rambunctious flings in Yami's office. This was what those heady backrubs of Yugi's led to when given the chance. This was what it was like to have Yugi Motou toss himself entirely at your mercy to be held while he cried.

They could, Yami discovered, be soft with each other not just a whir of vicious grinding lechers. Yugi would let them be soft, Yami wanted astoundingly to _be_sweet with him, and where that left this uncomplicated, heated, little fling of theirs with the firm pressing lips and the fingers dug in locks of sweaty hair was…

Could they just stay like this for a while? Yami wondered. Till his brain resumed its normal programming anyway. He didn't quite feel like himself. There was a lurching of giddy spinning in his stomach that threw his cynical little soul as he lay perfectly still and perfectly disposed to peace like he was in his own coffin. Warm, entangled… Yami inhaled, one arm hooked round the sinewy smaller body, and felt like a man. Not so much in the militant or modern sense but the more timeless essence of whatever valour or strength or _thing_made men feel like men somehow.

"You perfect fucking little…" He couldn't finish the breath, swallowing, a man of few words and less complex feelings.

* * *

(Track- The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe '_Narnian Lullaby_')

Yugi shook lightly when he woke. His whole internal structure felt compromise and knobby kneed like a newborn deer he was sheepish as he untangled himself from the sleeping form of the Minister for Defence. Sennen's chin sat idling by Yugi's forehead, lips nestled in his fringe, arm slung snug round his middle. Yugi didn't quite know what to think or how to move but fumbling gently worked himself free. He glanced back when he found his feet, starkly naked, to steal another picture of the man sprawled unconscious on the warm sheets with his face drifting tilted in Yugi's direction.

Yugi palmed his navel, knees quaking, and thought he might as well have been twelve. Last night was different, good, but so…strange, alien, _unnatural_. Yugi felt peculiarities muffling up in his chest. Bags under his eyes he glanced to the dawn light creeping through the curtains and brushed his own skin again. His body felt different, infected, in a gooey kind of way that fooled him into thinking he could still feel Sennen's arms looped round him pinning him to that broad tangy chest.

He stumbled mildly to the shower and the water did little but prove how bitterly oversensitive he was till he gave up on touching himself and face up into the spray tried to stir his consciousness. Still when he pattered back into the bedroom shaky and nude, riffling through the dirty washing basket for something to cover himself, he didn't feel any less groggy or small or weak or buckled.

Bingo, he sighed, finding that even Yami Sennen owned at least one oversized thread bear t-shirt. Throwing it over head Yugi didn't feel guilty or shamed and he didn't really feel bothered or cautious about stealing articles of clothing from the Minister either. That said his motivation to find his clothes and properly dress vanished somewhat when he got the worn, baggy, thing on and tired still collapsed to sit at the antique vanity watching the window.

He lulled, collecting himself, and remembered the fractions of last night. He recalled the beginning of Gozaburo's stupid gloat fest, then the champagne had flowed to his brain and vaguely he remembered Yami Sennen carrying him. He didn't remember the exact details of the conversation but he did remember being held. He remembered much more clearly waking in the guest bed and struck at the unexpected and unanticipated generosity of his superior had found himself ridiculously trying to thank Yami Sennen for his hospitality.

Yugi remembered the weak, hidden, urge that in the night had snuck out wanting to kiss the Minister for some reason. Out of some gratitude Yugi had buckled to kiss him, had felt appalled with himself, and before allowing his escape recalled in precise detail how Yami Sennen had gathered him up just the way some part of Yugi longed to be held in fuzzy dreams he hardly knew. The sex that followed was imprinted on his mind in terrifying detail. Yugi had to breathe, heart thrumming up, steadying himself as warmth stirred back into him. Shit…that had been…Yugi ran his hand over his face and through his hair. He couldn't find proper sentences.

Then… Yugi realized, very stupidly, that for a while he'd really truly given himself up to another human being in the total sense. He wasn't pulling any strings, wasn't fighting, wasn't pushing back and holding off. He'd let got for a second, he'd surrendered everything, he… he didn't know he could do that like _that_. Yugi… Yugi had never in any memory he could call up since the earliest days of his childhood slept with company. He slept lightly and rarely. He never slept well. He slept alone or in a cave with nearby soldiers. He didn't sleep in a man's arms. He didn't give himself up to body heat. He hated people. It had been…though… it had been _nice_he confessed mildly in admission to himself. He hadn't been thinking about it really. He'd just knocked out.

"Hmm…" Sennen groaned in the back of his throat shifting his legs in the blanket, one hand drifting up to obscure his face as the Minister came to consciousness.

Yugi watched. Frozen languidly, not really cold rather with his thighs quaking against each other found himself _wanton_ suddenly. He liked fucking Sennen sure but there was something shiveringly weak about how Yugi was aching to ride him right now. He suppressed it, just lightly, and leaning his back into the edge of the vanity counter watched.

Sennen pushed himself onto his elbows, groggy and stiff, and eyes sliding open blinked beside him. Finding the bed empty he roamed, chin motioning without any real alert thought till he found Yugi at the vanity. Eased somehow Sennen slackened his shoulders. He was so unchecked in this moment, barely awake, that it was revealing. He was so…when he wasn't being prim and proper and stuck up Sennen was… Yugi didn't know. He sucked with words.

"Thought I'd been dreaming," Sennen grunted quietly, dragging himself out of the bed nude to shuffle lazily onto his feet hands roaming over his face, the back of his neck, the bags under his eyes.

When the Minister closed his eyes again, inhaling stoutly, and exhaling to yawn he really seemed to see Yugi properly this time.

"Where'd you find that?" He mumbled with the tiniest frown.

"Hmm?" Yugi glanced down. "Washing basket."

"Thought I threw that," Sennen muttered. "Gym shirt from _ages_ ago…"

Probably when he was still on active duty given that look Yugi thought, fingering the worn collar of the tee with pale fingers as his toes flexed in the carpet.

"I have to work in an hour," the Minister explained a little more awkwardly when Yugi didn't respond, "would you like a ride home?"

"Yeah, please," the '_please_' added itself almost self-consciously in a whisper as Yugi continued to trace the collar. Look at him being all civil.

Sennen appeared to consider Yugi, as the pilot watched through his lashes, maybe considered offering something but then relented the idea and instead found his manners.

"Excuse me a moment," he dismissed, "shower."

* * *

(Track- Narnia Soundtrack '_Only the Beginning of the Adventure'_)

Sennen's home wasn't surprising to Yugi. The Ministerial positions were all inherited and with them came Ministerial Palaces which existed in a ring round the Imperial Capital and the Emperor's palace. Yugi had never actually been to Sennen's home but he knew from experience what to expect. The only surprising things about Sennen's home were that: he lived alone rather than with a lofty unit of relatives like the other Ministers (given he had no relatives really) and the very fact he lived in the Ministerial Palace rather than the Emperor's palace given that technically speaking Yami Sennen should've been Emperor. Yugi might not have cared about the succession himself but he did pay attention and he did wonder sometimes if bitter Yami Sennen resented being displaced at all.

He also wondered, cautiously, who exactly '_Heba_' was.

In last night's dirty uniform however he had to supress imagination to give directions so the Minister could drive him home. Yugi could've lived in the palace but chose against it. Instead he lived in one of the many centuries old town houses for nobles that existed in the very centre of the walled portion of the city. Three storeys the house, shoved in between two similar but differently painted town houses, was far too big for just Yugi to occupy but then he wasn't the only one living like that.

"I'll see you for a debriefing about Siege later this week," Sennen supposed awkwardly at the wheel. Back in uniform there was this odd disconnecting distance cut between normalcy and not.

"Yeah," Yugi grunted distantly._ Hold me, kiss me, you stupid bastard_ buzzed quietly inside him.

Yugi didn't act on it, fuck no, Yugi got out of the car and slapped the door shut and folded it all up still trying to find his sassy rigidity.

* * *

_Extra Songs:_

Yami/Yugi-  
Pink "The Truth About Love"  
Pink "Walk of Shame"  
Pink "Just Give Me A Reason"  
Imogen Heap "Say Goodnight and Go"  
Glee Cover "Hey, Soul Sister"

_My Smut Songs:  
_Darren Hayes "Insatiable"  
Rocky Horror Picture Show "Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me!"  
Meatloaf "Paradise by the Dashboard Light"

_HINT SONGS:_

The Lorax Soundtrack "How Bad Can I be?" (Yami/Yugi)  
Chameleon Circuit "Exterminate Regenerate" (Atem/Yugi)


	9. Chapter 9

_**Pairings Note**_: (just because a few people have been getting curious) I say Yami/Yugi is the main pairing because that what the majority of the story is devoted to. Who ends up where at the end of the fic or in the middle however is totally up for debate so Atem/Yugi and Yami/Heba are still things to keep on your radar. There's a lot time, fate and coincidence intends to throw out.

And so things start to get messy~

* * *

CHAPTER NINE

(Track_- Edward Scissorhands _Theme)

Heba had been insufferable after Yami's night with Yugi Motou. Which wasn't a surreal change from the norm but nonetheless it was still exhausting. How did Yami's little snitch take it upon himself to know everything exactly? He didn't believe a word Heba said on the matter. Yes, the little wretch seemed to know every foreseeable secret, seemed to get everywhere, but no one could do it like _that_. It was preposterous. That open door to his bedroom might've been his undoing but even with it shut Heba would've somehow known about whatever transpired between he and Motou. Heba was inevitability embodied and inescapable. Yami would figure it out though, eventually, but today was not that day.

Then the Emperor decided to pay a visit. Groaning at the intercom Yami felt his temples. Two lectures from two maniacs in one day? How magnificent.

"Let him in," Yami mumbled to Mana, readying himself to stand as Gozaburo burst through his office door boldly. Lord he was starting to look his age wasn't he? How old did that make Yami?

"Yami!" He greeted, throwing his hand out for a rather boisterous shake and slap at the Minister's shoulders. What now? Gozaburo's moods directly followed action and consequence. Unless something good Yami didn't know about had already happened the Emperor was looking for something.

"Majesty," he forced a prim smile, calm as always. The old bat wanted him to storm the Republican capital didn't he?

"Not so formal boy, just us isn't it?" He grunted slapping Yami's shoulder a second time. "Motou's well isn't he? Lost track of him at the Gala."

"He requested permission to leave early," Yami lied, "I don't believe he'd fully recovered from combat."

"Never complained," Gozaburo grinned, "good boy he is, never does. Now, then, have a moment?"

"Always Majesty," Yami was paid to have as many moments as the Emperor needed but this business like demeanour was a little harrowing. Gozaburo wanted something alright.

"I've got good news," he opened, which was never a good sign. "I found your cousin a Queen."

"Seto?" Yami perked mildly. Oh yes their laboratory bound Crown Prince would just _adore_ that. "How charming, I'm sure she's lovely."

"Finest ass in three states," Gozaburo confirmed in his own subtle way. "Now before we give the lucky the bastard the news I'd like you to help me with a proper wedding present."

"Wedding present?"

"We'll be taking the Republic soon," the Emperor asserted, "got to make sure we secure the throne while we do that. Give the people more to celebrate so jittery plebs don't fracture. We'll marry Seto and then I have the perfect way you can help me stifle all those wrong-headed, brain dead, pigs sty swill drinkers who'd like to rock this great nation."

Always a respectful monarch.

"What did his Majesty have in mind?" Yami inquired gently. If it was anything else he would've given assurances of his loyalty, promised to do anything, but Gozaburo was exceptionally…_tricky_ today. So much so Yami Sennen held his tongue tighter than a steel wired trap.

"We'll have you abdicate."

"Pardon Majesty?" No. No. No nonono you horrible fat old monstrous-

"All for show of course, sign of family unity, and all that. Some parasitic bottom feeders like to toot that old chestnut and argue the line of succession should've gone awry." Gozaburo shrugged pulling a cigar. "You and I know better of course but some people won't let it go. You abdicate, however unnecessary, for your cousin and it'll shut them up don't you think?"

Oh it would. It certainly would. Yami could hear Heba's voice hissing a calamitous volume inside his temples: _I told you! I told you! Kill him! Kill him!_

"That's certainly an interesting concept Majesty," Yami chuckled, (_your father, think of your father who you never got to meet, and how this counterfeit wants you to condone his chair stealing! Kill him!_) "but as you say it seems entirely unnecessary."

"I know," Gozaburo puffed, (_kill him! We'll make it look like an accident! We'll call it a heart attack! Kill him!_) "but the plebs have all the reason of a bowl of mashed potato between them you know Yami."

"Well your Majesty," he shrugged carefully, (_you don't agree with him he'll make you disappear. You know he will._) "I think it might have a dangerous counter affect. If I was to make such a gesture after so many years some might start gossip your Majesty had forced my hand- "(_you mean like he's doing?)_"-and perhaps that there was good reason for me to abdicate, some legitimacy, which would be dangerous."

"Hmm," the Emperor (_thief_) weighed it thoughtfully, taking a long drag from his foul cigar. "Might be right." (_You're always right! You're the only sane person in this country Sweetling!_)

"It's worth considering," Yami pressed nonchalantly, "perhaps we should consider it more deeply as the wedding approaches?"

"Might be right," Gozaburo nodded, sighing. "Might be right as always my boy. Well, I'll leave you to it in the meantime shall I?"

"Please let me know if there's anything I can do to assist in formulating a solution for your concerns Majesty."

"Always do!" He chuckled raising that sickly smoking husk like it was a champagne glass.

_He's testing you loyalty_, what Yami internalized as Heba's voice hissed at almost criminal and vicious intensity, _he's going to get rid of you._

He needed Heba.

* * *

(Track- "_Mordred's Lullaby_" by Heather Dale)

Yami's heart throbbed with a bitter, nearly childish, fury he wasn't aware he possessed his old frayed temper lurching up as it always did to throw him into danger. He twisted in the carpet, resuming the direction of his pace, clasping his skull through his dishevelled hair as his suit rumpled. Oh god…

"I told you," Heba sung unsurprisingly from his desk, "I _warned_ you button masher mine."

"I know," Yami mumbled.

"I told you one day he'd want a little bit more," he repeated. "I told you one day he'd want you to roll over like a strumpet and spread your legitimate metaphorical legs for him."

"I know!" Yami hissed pivoting to roar. "I know! _I get it!_ Are you going to lecture or are you going to _fucking _help me?"

"Do you want me to help you?" Heba teased, elbows on the desk as he leant his pristine chin into cupped cherub hands. "I thought you weren't interested in buying what I'm selling. I thought you told me that you had no ambition. You know, if you just abdicate you won't have a problem. Hell, I bet he'll make you Seto's best man. It's not like the Prince has any _real_ friends is it? What do you care?"

"I…" Yami swallowed, chest throbbing, "I…I don't…I don't want to be Emperor I just…"

"He's pushed you too far finally hasn't he?" Heba smirked calmly. "You can't let this one go. If you've still got a backbone Yami Sennen you won't let him shame you like this. You'll get you throne back and you better do it soon or else…"

"He'll kill me," he whispered knowingly hands foraging, lost, across his face to fist in his hair. "He'll destroy me if I don't play along."

"Uh-huh," the other whispered cunningly, eyes twinkling. Hell Heba was _aglow_ with primal satisfaction at finally being taken seriously. Practically radiant with those honey-plum garnet eyes of his and that sweetheart crest face that knew the foulest swear words on the charred earth. Yami had summoned for him from the Laboratories. This was Heba's crowning, glorious, day. He might as well enjoy it face to face.

"What do I do?"

"We cut him down first." Heba whispered, pushing off the desk top to rise like a warring Empress coming to flank his side. He was ever confident as always Yami rued. "He won't expect you to act fast. In the next few days you have to obliterate him."

"_How?_"

"Get Mahado." Heba whispered slowly, gently, as if Yami was a child, taking his elbow in hand and leaning close to his ear. "Get the loyalists. Gather every cruel thing that prig has ever done and every heroic victory you've ever orchestrated. Slander the princes. Show that they're bastards. Woo the Ministry, they'll side with whoever has the weight, and once you've got him cornered cut him for treason. You have the _army_ Yami. You're the Minister for _Defence_. It's called a _Military Coup_."

"But-"

"_No_," Heba hissed. "Get brave. Find yourself some balls."

"If I lose he'll-"

"Would you rather die on the front page as a revolutionary or behind a water-shed like some slimy drifter?" The smaller spat. "Come on Sennen what've you got to lose?"

"What if I don't have enough support?" He panicked.

"Tsk, tsk," Heba laughed. "Sennen, fledgling, tender one…you've got _Yugi fucking Motou_ wrapped round your little finger. You've got _me._"

"No I-"

"Beg him if you have to." The boy preened. "You don't have to swear your everlasting love to the brat. He doesn't _care_. He's your slut. He likes you more than Gozaburo and that's the kicker. Just ask him to support you and he'll do it."

"You're sure…?"

"Sweetling," Heba snorted hand slipping down his upper arm soothingly, fingers squeezing. "When have I ever been wrong?"

* * *

(Track- _"Everything you Ever_" Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog)

"Hey Yugi!" Jou called weaselling between the doors of the gym skidding on one foot. The man was practically a wild animal given the complete lack of coordination he exhibition once you dragged him from a cockpit.

"_Fuck off."_ Yugi spat nonchalantly. He wasn't in the mood. So wasn't. Sennen had rescheduled his debriefing to tomorrow and while Yugi as a general rule hated being given the run around being yanked by a commanding officer who couldn't deal with sex without acting like a _pussy_-

"But Yug!-"

"First warning Katsuya." He called arms swinging lightly as he panted on the treadmill. At times of severe emotional bullshit Yugi preferred to run but drop kicking Katsuya's ass was a close second.

"It's _Atem Horakhty!"_Katsuya appealed incessantly.

That got his attention.

"What?" Yugi's feet moved before his brain really. They leapt to straddle the edges of the treadmill track, hands finding the rails so he could appropriately gawk at his hired dumbass blonde. "What about Atem Horakhty?"

"He's on the news," Jou reeled specifying carefully; "like _alive _on the news! He gave a speech on Republican television. Intelligence stole a copy for the news to broadcast!"

"Alive?" Yugi breathed softly.

No.

His insides flared.

Yugi saw_ congealed_ _vermillion_.

"Alive…" he mumbled to himself fingers smacking at the treadmill panel. Effortlessly, gracelessly even, he dismounted and mumbling, fingers twitching, glided past Katsuya who seemed to be increasingly uneasy. "Alive…"

The blonde didn't respond, didn't dare really, instead turning heel he took to following the pilot. Jonouchi Katsuya may not have been the brightest spark at the academy but he knew better at this point than to get in the messy middle of Yugi Motou and Atem Horakhty. Frankly, sometimes, Yugi Motou scared him. Otogi and Honda considered often that Yugi Motou scared them all with very good reason.

Forced to amble into the lead Jou led the way uneasily to the unoccupied staff room down the hall. Opening the door he allowed Yugi to shot past him senseless still and jumping Ryuji and Hitoro had the good sense to scuttle out of their seats to allow Yugi prime position in front of the television.

"_The IBC has been given formally permission by the Ministry to broadcast the following._" The announcer chirped primly as the company logo filled the screen over low, classic, orchestral. "_This is a recording intercepted for military purposes from Bohemia originally transmitted across the nation, live and uncensored approximately twenty four hours ago._"

They skipped whatever newscast introduction must've been given to the blues. Skipping instead to the full screen head shot of a battered Atem Horakhty, very much alive, centring himself carefully to begin speaking.

"I understand that many of you right now are afraid. You should be. I also understand a great many more of you are concerned for your children and the fate of our country." He began with that dampened, desperate, patriotism of his shimmering out of those pretty scarlet eyes all watery with butter-wouldn't-melt compassion.

Yugi took a breath. Ryuji, Hitoro and Katsuya entranced as they were by the screen prepared themselves for a nuclear level fallout.

"What happened a Siege fourteen days ago has sent ripples of trauma across the continent. We lost. On that front I can offer nothing else but my sincerest condolences for every family who experienced the atrocious loss of life witnessed during the conquest. I can assure you every effort was taken, at every level of command, to protect the city and every human life therein."

Atem paused, eyes darkening, and for a moment Yugi saw the man was about to cry, truly at that. Horakhty was no actor.

"I understand that many of you are very disillusioned by our military infrastructure but I can swear to you every effort is being made to secure and protect our borders as I speak. Unfortunately, honestly, we are experiencing a crippling loss of support across the board."

Atem Horakhty really, totally, made eye contact then with the camera. That handsome, sincere, face of his had been put to very good use clean shaven. Whose bright idea had this been Yugi wondered?

"I am appealing to you personally tonight to ask you to contribute your continued, diligent, support to the war effort. We are in the worse possible conditions to facilitate negotiations and our military strength is bleak. I am_ begging _every able bodied man, woman and child not currently vested towards aiding the front line to please begin."

They were putting their poster boy to use.

"I am begging every citizen in every town who wishes to remain the citizen of a free and democratic Republic to enlist. On the promise that I swear to you I will do everything within my power and within the power of the parliament to save us.

I swear to you that if necessary I will give my life for this country. I swear to you that I will work tirelessly to bring your children home and give those not yet born a secure, free, future. I swear to you that I will not surrender and that at no point will we ever consider surrendering our rights to a hostile and oppressive dictatorship encroaching on our lands. All I ask is for your guidance and your support."

Atem was softer now, glassy even, as he took air for the final blow.

"We will survive this, we have a national spirit that can endure, but to win I need your help. Please. Thank you."

They faded out.

"_Officials are unable to tell us if the Rebels have experienced any increase in recruitment after that heartfelt appeal by decorated Lieutenant-_"

"Alive…" Yugi chuckled grin breaking. "He's…how did he…? I massacred him. I set him on _fire_."

Ryuji stepped back apace. Hitoro averted his eyes. Katsuya wasn't given much of an option however when standing Yugi Motou rounded on him. He wasn't a big lad, no not at all, but fuck if Yugi wasn't intimidating livid.

"_You_ told me," he breathed hotly, "that his mech was too far gone to salvage. _You _told me-"

"How was I supposed to know?" Jou panicked, fumbling back. "I swear to God! I just have what recovery reported! No one's supposed to live through something like that! The whole building came down! You're lucky to be alive!"

"Katsuya," Yugi cut with brutal softness, "_get the car_."

"Yes Sir." He quivered shambling out.

"Uh…Sir?" Hitoro inquired. "Um…where?-"

"I'm going to see the Minister." Yugi answered mildly. "Pack your shit. We leave when I'm done."

"But Sir-"

He glanced. Hitoro shut up.

* * *

(Track- Imogen Heap "_Have You Got It In You_")

To her credit Mana did attempt to halt Yugi's procession into the Minister's office today but, equally to her credit, she promptly gave up that effort to inform Sennen on the intercom. It was a very skilled switch in tactics probably facilitated by the obvious brittle uneasy of Katsuya, Hitoro and Ryuji following pallid behind the rogue. You could call Mana a lot of things but she knew how to read the water and looking as he did she was not about to argue with Yugi Motou.

General Mahado however was startled, ruffled, and when Yugi kicked the door in he was scrambling to shuffle a general disarray off Minister Sennen's desk. Though doing so, even successfully, still wouldn't have done much for the general disarray of their appearances. Yugi noticed the askew ties, the untucked shirts, the unkempt hair if only because it was so obvious when perfect Sennen wasn't pristine but he failed to care. His insides, the thermo nuclear reactor Yugi Motou called a heart, was reaching critical vengeance mass and needed immediate relief.

"Motou?" Sennen opened. "The blazes are you doing?"

"I'm here to formally request, demand really," he confessed brazenly unapologetic, "permission to take a covert unit over enemy lines to execute Atem Horakhty. Sounds good? Good. I'll be back in a week or three."

"Motou!" Sennen hissed as Yugi turned. Dethatching himself from his hunch at the desk the Minister used those graceful dancing feet of his to grasp the pilot's upper arm and catch him before he fled. "Wait a moment you ridiculous boy. You can't just go charging off."

"Yeah, I can," Motou begged to differ stubbornly.

"Mahado," Sennen sighed in exasperation to the only reasonable occupant of the office, "go wait outside. Motou and I need to have a discussion."

He wasted no time. Like a well-oiled machine Mahado, the stifling old loyalist, scuttled out and in his absence Sennen took Yugi firm in hand and began whatever tirade of logical restraint he wanted to barrel into. Yugi wasn't at all interested. Fuck it. Proper chain of command, war crimes, rules of engagement…all of it could be put in a basket and punted from the highest mountain. Atem Horahtky needed to die and there wasn't a damn thing anyone could say to hold Yugi from him now. The Republican had made him look like a _fool_.

"Now listen to me," the Minister ordered smoothly, "we have bigger problems than that corn mincer blue coat of yours."

"Like _what?_"

"You're familiar with the concept of abdication yes?"

"No I live in an autocracy and I've never heard of it." Yugi sassed snidely. "Get to the point. I'm burning daylight I could be crossing the border right now."

"I had _hoped _to talk to you properly tomorrow," Sennen cut squeezing his upper arms tighter, "you've beat me to the line so you will kindly cut the lip and let me explain myself in my own time. Understood?"

Eyes rolling Yugi pursed his lips.

"Better, now," the Minister elaborated. "The Emperor wants me to sign a formal abdication."

_"So?_" Yugi sighed loudly.

"I have no intention of complying."

"Oh." That changed things.

Actually that royally fucked things up.

"Exactly."

"What has that got to do with anything?" Yugi shrugged uncomfortably trying to dislodge his shoulders from the grasp. The cogs were turning over fast in his head. The simple hatred for the blues was complicating with decades of history here at home now contending for attention at the forefront of his mind.

"That means you have a choice to make." Sennen heaved. "If you'd rather remain impartial I'll let you totter off after Horakhty but if you would like to assist in…well, you need to stay. It's critical."

"Assist as in_ revolution _assist?" He clarified.

"Something like that." The Minister confirmed uneasily.

"You're actually going to…?"

"Yes." He supplied. "The question is who would you rather be taking orders from: my brass or Gozaburo and his peons? Because if I lose everyone I recruit is likely going down with me."

Yugi derailed mentally. Shit. He wasn't meant to switch tangents this fast without some sort of climatic pay off for his original commencing tirade. Just swiping Atem Horakhty to the side was difficult to digest.

If Sennen went so would most of the sane militants like Mahado. Gozaburo's favourites were childish tosspots from three generations ago when tobacco was the main food group and whiskey was apparently plentiful. The Emperor's tosspots feared Yugi though, lacked integrity and backbone. They'd let him get away with murder. Literally. They'd make the war last another twenty years. Yugi needed that but…

His mind buzzed over painfully aware of Sennen's watchful gaze on his features. There were two or three very pressing details but nothing emotional which flew to attention. Was there a human way to think about this? Something to tip the scales? Yugi wasn't one for more philosophical attachments like the fact that Sennen did have clearer right to the throne over Gozaburo.  
_  
__"You've been on the field for years," Atem stressed, "and you have to have been in training before that probably for years. At fourteen or, more likely, at ten even and at that age you are in no position to make decisions about your future especially not about whether or not it should involve rifles. So my point is: whoever was supposed to be looking out for you didn't have your best interests or needs in mind. That makes them monstrous and they made you monstrous."__  
_  
It swirled up from a stagnant part of Yugi, crystal clear on the surface of his mind where Atem had imprinted himself.

"_I'm just wondering what kind of Government and what kind of family does that to a child. You have to be miserable._"

Yugi found the accompanying files. What had his childhood been like if he stopped to actually accrue it for inspection? What happened in all those years he didn't think about? In every day he put effort into forgetting? He didn't think about anything before he was sixteen, he blocked and he repressed. Why? He knew, oh he knew, he just didn't like to remind himself.

_"If you were happy you'd think a little longer about risking your life to win a duel."_

Oh no, Yugi was feeling again, docile at the surface of his skin and turbulent all the way to the core. He hated Atem Horakhty because he was right and because he put what was Yugi currently in grave, mortal, danger. That was the problem wasn't it? The Republican cut a straight bullseye through the bravado and saw the actual peeled back face of Yugi Motou.

Gozaburo…

_The Underground_…

Yugi remembered… Oh fuck did Yugi remember… all those censored details… what was it that Ryuji said? _'Most assholes either got not enough hugs as a child or way too many'_. Dirty and crass as it was a lot of truth was said in jest.

Then what about Sennen though? Yugi raised his chin carefully. Was this a ploy? Had Sennen been using him and reeling him in? No… no if the Minister had been _trying _to woo him he wouldn't have been such a touchy dunderhead about it. It was accidental coincidence. It boiled down though to two very stark options: the hand that had fed and reared him to be a sociopath or the ridiculous politician who held Yugi once for a night of dreamless sleep? He wasn't any more moralistic than that. Yugi killed people for a living. He survived. He couldn't think much on ethics because he would break internally, like a machine confronted with a paradox, and any sense of legacy required him to understand the concept of family. Instead he was left with a fairly naïve set of appeals based on childish selfishness. Who made him feel better? Who did he want to hurt? Who would send him back to TU?

Sennen must've decided he was taking too long.

"It's up to you Yugi."

Him? Oh don't say that. That was the humane thing to say. Not the '_if you were a real Imperial you'd X_' answer they tossed out so much in the military. Yugi muddled. It was easier when people didn't treat him like a sane, functioning, human being.

He made the mistake of ferreting Sennen's gaze and inner structures crumbled. _Just hold me you retard, please? Just for a second I want to feel like that again. _Yugi diverted his gaze. Truth be told his chosen side was inevitable at this point he just didn't want to own up to it. Did Sennen know? About everything?

"Oh don't look like that," Sennen moaned. Shattering their mutual composure the elder fastened him under the knees and round the torso and hefting lifted Yugi into his arms.

Yugi yelped, arms fumbling round the man's neck, helpless and stupid as Sennen sat them both on the chaise with Yugi pulled tight in his lap. Yugi folded, gone, nails digging in as he hid his face in fresh pressed cotton. _Yes! Finally! Don't let go you fucker! _Inhale, exhale, Sennen wrapping round him, shielding, fingers fisting in the thick locks at the back of his scalp.

Yugi just wanted to stay like that.

* * *

(Track- Imogen Heap "_Aha!_")

"Katsuya, Ryuji, Hitoro." Yugi ordered fingers snapping as he strode out of the office after a handful or very tense moments.

They jumped, like trained dogs really, Jou almost fell and forced by his own composure Otogi hauled him back up.

"Sir?" Honda attempted.

"Talk and walk." Yugi ordered one hand cocked on his hip, thoroughly unruffled, as abandoning them he started off down the hallway.

They exchanged glances. Oh fuck. What now? Aliens right? Or at least that seemed to be Jou's concern given how he cringed. They waved down Minister Sennen's plump, hot-pants, secretary kindly and kicking up their feet followed.

"Sir are we going to…?" Otogi started as they turned a carpeted corner.

"Horakhty's back on the waiting list." He answered. "New orders."

"New orders?"

"I'll tell you later."

* * *

(Track- Vienna Teng "_Lullaby for a Stormy Night"_)

"You shouldn't blame yourself for everything," Ryou Bakura sighed. "You don't have big enough shoulders."

"Heh," Atem smiled chin in hand.

Yawning he stretched both arms tall over his head, fingers laced, legs kicking out in in the dreadful cradle of the pinching steel framed folded chair. Ryou rather ignored him neat, trimmed, nails skirting over the circuitry spread beneath him. There was something peaceful about watching the techie work. Ryou was one hell of an engineer. So were the Hawkins but Ryou had such farmer's love in him it reminded Atem vaguely of home. He'd never admit it. Ryou would colour and kick him out probably but for as long as he could get away with it Atem was content just to sit and watch the engineer tinker like a baking mother or a father mending a jeep.

"You want any help?" He offered in their normal way.

"No thank you," Ryou dismissed.

Atem could wield a wrench as well as any mech pilot but he lacked a certain degree of finesse which Ryou found essential. Atem mended, Ryou invented, totally different. Atem wouldn't have resented being put to work mind. At home they put him to work on everything. Since he was small his father and his grandfather had insisted that if he was going to watch something he had better use his tiny hands to help. It must've been where he inherited this bleeding heart of his that made him incapable of keeping his nose out of other people's business (well, that and his mother).

Atem remembered helping plant corn, he remembered helping his dad butcher every mammal within five clicks of their home town, he remembered how bad his male guardians were at cooking anything that hadn't once been baaing in a field… The women back home used to feel sorry for them, motherless trio of Horakhty men they were, and bring Atem apple pie and chicken soup when he was sick. Hmm… homemade vanilla ice cream on the patio, tobacco over the fence, dusty sunsets…

This, right here, was why Atem loved sitting with Ryou in a cold, silent, hangar watching the engineer single handily orchestrate something beautiful.

"I'm sorry I destroyed the EY-3." He apologized for the thirtieth, vaguely morose, time.

"It's alright," Ryou shrugged, "the Hawkins will build you a new one."

"And I'll get another sword from you right?" He smiled.

"If you're especially good," the other teased softly though it lacked flare and focus.

"Hmm," Atem sighed deeply, leaning onto his knees.

"If your injuries are playing up you should sleep."

"No, I'm fine," he forced another smile. "Just thinking too hard."

"Don't hurt yourself sand boy."

"Heh," he chuckled, expression souring a second later. "General Ishtar's pissed at me."

"It's not your fault." Ryou reminded coolly pulling more wires between his fingers. "No one knew there would be that many Imperials."

"I know," he groaned tiredly leaning his face into his palm. "I just wish I could've done more. I'm not giving up it's just…I feel like all I've done is make things worse."

"Well you got people listening." Ryou offered blandly.

"Ishtar's little brother wants to join special ops," Atem remarked, "wants to come with me and revenge Siege."

"Get himself killed."

"Probably."

"Oh stop it," Ryou grunted smacking his shoulder with the wrench, "lighten up."

"And do what? Tell Yugi Motou jokes?" Atem snorted. "Or go on a date with one of the _four_ women I know?"

None of them were exceptionally viable options either. Doctor Kujaku still scared him frankly and her chain smoking was going to be the death of her. Miss Anzu worked long well-manicured hours attending the President smelling like wonderfully clean sheets. Rebecca Hawkins might've been a technological genius but she was kind of _fifteen_. General Ishizu Ishtar would've very much liked to see him hung for what she perceived to be his ego and given the ten year age difference he might let her. Gosh though, what a stupid thing to ruminate on, he chuckled, he didn't exactly join the army for babes now did he? Oh well, he knew more viable male options at any rate.

"What do you think they'll do?" Ryou pondered. "The Empire?"

"Now?" Atem supposed. "I couldn't guess. They never seem to do what I expect. Sennen's good at what he does alright and Motou…pfft, I'm lucky to be alive."

"Dreadful enemies to have."

"Oh yeah," he chuckled. "Good thing I pissed off both isn't it?"

"Typical."

* * *

1 _Abdication_ is when a monarch formally signs over the crown to a relative. Usually they're effectively forced to. It's also technically not possible given that in European cultures when a King is crowned he's anointed which means he makes a sacred oath with God to rule until his death. Formally no monarch can resign (which is why Elizabeth II can't hand the crown onto her son before her death)  
2 Several hints for Heba this chapter  
3 Several hints for Yugi this chapters  
4 One very sneaky inference about the origins Atem's bleeding heart that I'll come back to later

Next Time: Atem hopes, Mokuba worries and Yami gets nostalgic while Heba and Gozaburo have a little chat.


	10. Chapter 10

Lots of hints this week and lots of extra goodies/notes at the bottom!

* * *

CHAPTER TEN  
(Track- Pan's Labyrinth "The Fairytale and the Labyrinth")

Getting the Emperor out of bed before noon was vaguely reminiscent of certain astrological events in the sense that it only occurred once every few decades. Still Gozaburo was a man of ambitious passions, malleable in that sense, and given the proper incentive there were very few things he _wouldn't_ do. Having him rise at six in the morning, doubtlessly hung over, to trek to the outer Capital laboratories was possible then with enough bait.

"Bloody eerie crack house," he grumbled, always eloquent.

One couldn't blame him however. In the twilight between late night and dawn exiting the plains surrounding the Capital and entering the laboratory was unnerving. Something about the low emerging light seeping overhead, the darkness in the crops bellow as they rustled, the looming background of the palace in the far distance and the mist that hugged the mountain ridge created a picture any man found instinctively primeval.

Nonetheless the laboratory was as expectedly prim as possible. A lot of busied well ironed men in lab coats jittering to and fro down long windowless concrete hallways like bees in a hive. It was a bee hive really with the exception of the queen and the supposition that instead of honey they produced super weapons. _The_ super weapons actually.

"Please your highness," useless drone sixty-seven offered, "if you'll just wait here a moment Doctor Bound will be with you momentarily. Please make yourself as comfortable as possible."

He grumbled, digging for another cigar. They warmed the cockles of his thick, congealed, heart when breakfast wasn't available. He'd had two already on the drive up and would probably have another two in the limo ride back. The cockroach humans who ran the laboratory, the engineers and geneticists and such, had better of disabled their smoke alarms.

Puffing Gozaburo left the armed guards at the hydraulic door and limping on one more withered, stiff, leg entered the office.

There was carpet in this part of the facility. The older hunks of construction were better outfitted than the rest that had been thrown up in the last two years or even in the last months to facilitate the building of the Z0-RC which was still in slow but steady construction on site. The sheer amount of space needed to assemble it into one piece was going to be monumental when they finished. That said this office was probably ten or twelve years old. Carpeted, low stuffed shelves, little knick knacks and clean leather lounges.

He paused in the antechamber, puffing thickly, and leaning into one side (ruminating whether or not to invest in a walking stick give his premature aging) he found the open door to the private secondary room which made up the actual desk and chair portion of the office.

_Motou…_?

No…

"Well then," he grunted, moving on in opposition to the drudgery of his own muscles. "Who the blazes are you?"

The petite wraith at the desk in three quarter sleeves didn't answer, profile exposed to the door, raising a steaming mug of something to lovely if pale lips in two cradling hands. Instead, lashes fluttering appreciatively, they took a sip and leant back as if the haggard old man hardly existed.

"Well answer me runt." Gozaburo prompted. "You know who I am?"

"I know," he sighed, sipping. Those pretty little nails were a little long for a boy. He was too young to be here.

"Then you ought to know you simpering-"

The room spun, electricity seemed to fluctuate between the atoms, oxygen diverting back as if stung.

Gozaburo hacked, fat smouldering cigar smacking the otherwise lush carpet soggily as twitching fingers reeled back to his own well-dressed chest. He clutched himself, stability failing, as some proverbial rubber band constricted intensely round his lurching heart.

"Ca-_ah_-" he hacked, hobbling, "c_a_-all some-_ack_-one damn it!"

Mug in hand, balanced in one set of fine fingers, the digits of the boy's opposing palm strayed over the desk to the control console.

"_Security measures activated: hydraulic door locked._" The control panel sung automatically in a clipped feminine approximation.

"Wha-_agh!_" Gozaburo tumbled, hacking into the carpet, the band round his insides squeezing, bruising, in against all resistance. "You doin-_ngh_?"

Both hands returned calmly to the mug, as the boy hooked one leg over the other, tipping back the porcelain to catch the clotted dregs.

He didn't even flinch during the fifteen, languishing, moments.

* * *

(Track- Chocolat soundtrack "Caravan")

Thursday, another one, had arrived fresh and Yami Sennen found himself cloud gazing out the window as he idled over his reports. It was a surprisingly pleasant day once the fog cleared up. Not at all rainy or sullen like it could've been and had been in the greyish, muddled, earlier days of the week. It was perfect _coup d'état_ weather in summation if he was feeling particularly unfriendly. That front, the entire conspiracy, was rigged to a hair rigger now. It wasn't a matter of finding the days to prepare it was a matter of finding the right hour, the right moment, and then it would all come crumbling down. Civil war…

Everything in the relatively peaceful Capital now hinged entirely on timing. Timing which promptly decided to shot itself in the foot.

"Sir," Mahado glided in uneasily, that increasingly sour expression newly plastered over his features. "We have a situation."

"What is it?"

"The Emperor's dead."

"Dead…?" He murmured, smacking the laptop shut cordially. "What do you mean _dead?_"

"They found him in a private office at the outer laboratory." Mahado crept in closer to the edge of the hardwood. "Paramedics from onsite were called in but apparently he was at least an hour gone. Heart failure they believe."

"What the hell was he doing at the outer laboratories?"

"I don't know Sir." The General extended his hands dumbfounded. "His bodyguards weren't informed. He locked himself in and didn't come out."

"Does the Ministry know?"

"No Sir," Mahado shook slowly, "luckily given the highly militarized nature of the locale we've been able to secure the situation. No one but the professionals onsite are aware of the situation."

"My God…"

The window was open, just a smidgen, Mana thought he needed fresh air. A breeze swept in, a pigeon or a sparrow or something equally brown chirped under the sunlight, over a patch of palace garden where Yami used to play hide and seek with Seto. In that second everything changed. The house exhaled somehow. The city, Yami knew though he gave himself no time to recover, was about to be his.

"I'll summon the Ministry," Yami managed deftly, forcing himself to rise and reach for the phone. "Call General Shada to organize mobilizing the troops. We'll secure the city within the next three hours. I don't want a panic. Tell Motou and his unit to secure the Crown Prince asap. They should already be on standby. Send special ops in to recover Mokuba from the University. Take them both into holding."

"Yes Sir, anything else?"

"Did you have the medics store the body?"

"Yes Sir."

"Good," he pondered aloud, "we'll organize a DNA test and autopsy in the next twenty-four."

Disprove Seto and Mokuba's legitimacy and confirm an accidental death all in one foul swoop. Darkly, ironically, Gozaburo's body would be the last piece of evidence Yami needed to topple him. With the Emperor so easily shuffled off the Princes were much less imposing threats. They had few strong allies given their lax sociability and without Gozaburo Yami wasn't even sure Seto would bother to struggle against his dispossession. With Gozaburo gone, with Yami prepared to take them, everything else would almost, very almost, be too easy.

Bloodless, clean, suspicious.

Yami suspected a cause and a consequence but there was no time to investigate it.

* * *

(Track- Ministry of Magic "Snape Vs Snape")

Atem woke to the light, waspish, rousing of Ryou Bakura. He'd fallen asleep in a hangar cot in the onsite holding cell for unruly soldiers with the barred gate thrown open. It wasn't the most comfortable way to spend the night but when you'd slept in a barn often enough it seemed hospitable.

"Up, up," Ryou pushed, "you don't want to miss this Horakhty."

"What now?" He groaned pushing up on his hand. "The Imps nuking us yet?"

"Better."

Ryou Bakura was a man of very few words and he chose all of them very carefully. So Atem could be assured when he said '_better_' he meant it.

The whole base seemed to be up, clustered, in the meeting rooms and round chairs which was ungodly given the hour. Ryou dragged him, with firm but directive hands, up the gangway and skirting through a posse of barely dressed rookies from the barracks running to their own meeting point pulled them into a higher ranking staff room. It must've been for the engineers. Hissing Rebecca Hawkins was hushing those already in the chairs round the television and beckoning Arthur offered Atem the place beside him as Ryou snuck between shoulders to kneel.

"-_For those of you just tuning in we have alarming reports coming in from intercepted Imperial broadcasts that Emperor Gozaburo Kaiba has died._"

"What?" Atem hissed hands grasping the back of Rebecca's chair to lean in closer to the middle aged late night news caster as the girl hushed him harshly.

"_The news came as a shock this morning announced via a mass press release from the Ministry. The cause of death is currently believed to be unexpected heart failure. The Emperor was sixty two._ _He leaves behind two sons and a nephew." _

They were rolling stock footage of the coronation against public events from the last twenty years in a lazy, thrown together, mishmash.

"_Reports coming in suggest a crisis in the succession has supposedly broken out across the Empire. Minister for Defence Yami Sennen secured the nation under martial law this morning preceding the announcement and has reportedly taken both princes into military custody._"

"Oh fuck."

"-_The latest news follows an announcement from the Ministry, who have been in council, ordering for an immediate investigation into the Kaiba lineage in wake of accusations that the current Crown Prince was adopted into the succession under a propaganda campaign more than ten years ago._"

"I remember that," Arthur whispered, "my God…"

"-_Sources believe in the event the inquiry should prove substantiated Yami Sennen would ascend the throne as first in line. Some Imperial theorist have already come forward stating the Minister for Defence holds a superior claim to the crown given the regency fall out following the death of former Crown Prince Aknamkanon, Emperor Gozaburo's elder brother, and former Emperor Aknadin. The state of the Princes is at this time unknown as-"_

"Maybe then-"

"-_is the effects this will play on international politics. However the President was quoted early this morning after an emergency press screening saying that Cyprus has ordered an immediate and indefinite cease fire in the war against Bohemia._"

"Yes!" Atem swore drawing in his fist.

The effect was instantaneously on the mood.

He could _hear _recruits cheering in the hangar down the hall. They could have a moment to breathe a little lighter without the weight bearing down. Ryou was already gossiping about a chance to reman and rearm. People wouldn't die for a few days. Atem could have a proper victory breakfast.

* * *

(Track- Portal 2 "Cara Mia Turret Opera")

Never, during the course of his life, had Yami Sennen sat through what classified as a tenser '_family_' meeting. Not even when he was an unreasonable adolescent or when Seto was an unfriendly young man had he felt such dissent within a room of men who had been raised on relatively the same terms. Not that Yami could blame them under the conditions but of a weak stomach he was driven to break out his first cigarette in nearly five years as he sat across the table in the afternoon sun.

By the door Yugi looked no worse for wear leaning into the ornate wood work gazing off through the panes of glass over-looking the river from the tower. Motou's unit had taken on turns monitoring the Princes. Three on duty, one off to sleep, rotating every six hours since Yugi had claimed Seto yesterday under false and rather cordial circumstances from the workshop under the palace. Though, of course, everything had been cordial until Seto and Mokuba had realized they were essentially under military arrest in the Tower no less.

Seto, in all truth, probably would've been utterly reasonable if he had a schematic to appraise but as he had no access to that damn working cell of his he was increasingly irritable. Mokuba, out of all of them, seemed the only individual who was truly off put by the situation.

"Least he's dead," Seto grunted eventually.

"Seto!" Mokuba lurched.

"We're all thinking it."

"It is," Yami confessed, "arguably the silver lining. I won't deny."

"Surprised by your backbone though," the still Prince counteracted however extending his hand, "give me a cigarette."

Yami wouldn't deny him that much and obliging drew one from his breast pocket to slip across the thickly varnished table. Given a few porcelain cups, seating rearranged towards the view, they could've had a lovely fucking tea party under normal conditions.

"See you picked sides as well," Seto rotated when Yami wouldn't raise to provocation, glancing instead over the back of his seat to Yugi. "Decided to finally involve yourself did you?"

Yugi blinked, not paying the slightest bit of attention, and seeming to compute what the Prince had accused snorted. Shuffling he lay back into the wall, arms folded gently, to continue watching the clouds pass, eyes locked on the horizon, head lulled.

"What do you care?" Yugi mumbled to their unified surprise.

It was a reasonable question given their history. Everyone in the room, willing or not, knew that given half a chance while Seto would ascend the throne to claim all the privileges he desired the actual running of the country was of no interest to him and never had been. All that interested Seto was his minor fascinations. Politics, economics, ethics… did not fit into those categories. He would, inevitably, defer any real responsibility to Yami and a bickering ministry so he could play in his secluded mechanised world.

"Think of it this way," Yami offered, "this way you don't ever have to attend another party."

"But we might have a very pressing appointment six feet under," Mokuba snapped weakly.

"He's not going to slaughter you." Yugi sighed airily as if it were the most ridiculous suggestion.

"Will if we argue."

"With what?" The pilot snorted to the student. "So you've got a birth certificate that says Kaiba in the national archives. He's got one for the pair of you that says something else."

"Gozaburo never did bother to throw anything away. Never quite knew when it might be useful to blackmail someone with." Yami added, puffing. "Besides," he continued more seriously, "we both know Seto, really, it's not your crown. You and I both remember the orphanage."

"Nature versus nurture," he shrugged.

"You really care?" The Minister challenged. "Come now, wouldn't you honestly rather have the freedom to withdraw entirely from the public sphere?"

"Maybe," he was an unhelpful git as always, argumentative for the sake of it. "I don't appreciate the treatment. You're not providing much of a choice are you?"

"Just stealing back," he returned unapologetically. "I do regret your inconvenience I would've much rather had this argument with Gozaburo."

"I don't doubt it."

"You were ready pretty fucking fast," Mokuba sulked. "How long you two been planning this?"

"Pipsqueak," Yugi intervened crassly, "if you were involved I'd let you bitch. You've never been involved in anything so keep it shut. There's nothing to contribute."

Mokuba seemed to wish to argue he was older than Yugi but given how immature it must've felt on his tongue, how counterproductive, he relented under the truth of it. Even Seto, who railed to his defence, didn't deny that honestly Mokuba had spent a great deal of his life distancing himself from them and the throne entirely. He had no say and had never wanted any. It was a little late to be offended.

"The inquiry will be over within a matter of days," Yami declared diverting them, "then this will be settled. The question is where you would like to place yourselves in the new order. I'm perfectly happy to provide gainful employment and shelter after all."

"It's down to pride I suppose then." Seto offered unhelpfully. "I'll let you know then shall I? When your lawyers, your soldiers and your doctors thoroughly finish dispossessing me on public television."

"Can't blame me for the truth," he shrugged. "They're your genetics."

"Raised a Kaiba."

"Kaiba still isn't the right line." Yami sighed. "Should've been raised a Sennen. That's the point. This isn't about you Seto. I like you. This is about Gozaburo. He took what was mine. It was never his to offer to you and you never wanted it regardless. It's pointless to bicker now."

It was. Yami had won but the family unit he had been raised and embittered with had been decimated in the process. Now they were weakly, more for show really, grumbling over the corpse of the issue that had already passed. The populace saw it as an electric struggle, a chance, a balance still wavering but here in the towers of the palace under high security and in the privacy of each other's company it was over. What else had died with the old man however was still to be interned.

"What was he doing in the labs?" Mokuba mumbled, sideways in his chair and bitter. There was suggestion, accusation, bubbling there.

"I honestly have no idea." Yami confessed.

"You sure? You supervise that place."

"Not directly," no, Yami deferred that control of authority to someone much fiercer and entirely more capable. Heba was far more interested in Z0-RC and EX0D1A than he could ever feign to be. That was an irrelevant, surplus, detail however not worth trying to express appropriately to Mokuba or even Yugi.

"What do you care?" Yugi added again and Yami glanced but realized then that once more it was to Mokuba. "You hated him as much as the rest of us. Are you going to put his murderers' on trial? Hard drinking and whoring? We'll even call up some of the little girls he fondled as character witnesses eh?"

"Oh shut up!" Mokuba snapped.

"Heh," the pilot exhaled snidely, "don't start something you can't finish."

"What do you care?" Mokuba returned just as hard. "You always professed to like him turncoat."

"_So?_" Yugi challenged unapologetically. "Everyone pretended to like him. That's called being Emperor. You don't tell a _dictator_ they're a _dick_. It's called treason. Least I didn't take his shit."

"I-"

"Oh leave it." Seto sighed. "It's not worth it."

Yugi, aptly deciding no one would play with him anymore, tapped the door hard with the side of his fist to exchange himself with his three tagalongs and slink off duty. Yami rather wanted to follow him to whatever cot the knights had been using to rest in. In the past few days Yami hadn't so much as touched him, brushed him even, since snapping to haul the child back into his lap. They hadn't been intimate then in almost two weeks since Yugi's overnight stay. Far from wanting him any less Yami found he was aching to gobble him up yet the sexual tension didn't exactly overwhelm in the most obvious sense. No, exhausted and guilt ridden as he was currently Yami was dying just to follow Yugi out to that lonely tower cot and hefting the brat to him sleep away a few quiet hours peacefully with his face buried in the boy's hair. He wanted sighing, sleeping, lips along his neck again.

How would Motou take to that he wondered? He was difficult to read when he wasn't throwing himself at Yami at the drop of a proverbial hat. On the other hand Yami had only had to take Yugi up into his arms a few days ago for the boy to cling, cleaving, to him. Yami had almost thought he would develop bruises from the way the boy wound his arms round his neck as he cradled him in his lap perfectly amiable.

The door closed. Yami could've followed but this was hardly the time. Instead he allowed the exchange giving up Motou for the three lesser specimens of knighthood. Perhaps it was cruel to call them lesser on records alone given they were probably better human beings than Motou but Yami sincerely doubted Katsuya kissed like it was going out of fashion the same delectable way Yugi did.

With the four of them separated and the three unrelated knights arrived they fell back into silence. There was unity at least in the idea that Yami, Seto and Mokuba had no interest in expunging family secrets before company.

Still puffing, bud in hand, Yami hauled himself to the window.

He remembered Seto and Mokuba arriving in the palace grounds under cover of darkness. One night he fell asleep with a dead cousin and in the morning he woke he was told he had two living ones he was to act as if he'd always had. It was a ballsy, ridiculous, move by Gozaburo and typical in that way but he had the viciousness to pull it off it couldn't be denied. He'd worked hard to supress any resistance to the swapping of a dead prince for a live one. It had nearly been a witch hunt.

For quite a while it had just been the three of them. Mokuba clung to Seto and Seto clung to Yami. Yami and Seto quite certainly took an abject dislike to each other which festered as they grew till eventually declining but in the first days Yami had been so wary of them. He wasn't ever sure if he liked the imposter orphans. He'd been such an aggressive child after all. Noah had been closer to his age, whinier, and Seto while much younger was instantly simultaneously more and less annoying. In one way Yami had clear authority of age and size which he quite approved of, Seto had been much less sulky comparably of course to Noah, but then by the same token Seto was also more argumentative and stubborn. When things hadn't gone Noah's way he'd cry. When things didn't go Seto's way he fought back. That had proven explosive. One morning Yami and Seto could be thick as thieves the next mortal foes. Yet as Yami buried his own intense temper their relationship mellowed. Now they had very little to do with each other anymore.

Mokuba was sort of a non-issue really a concern for Seto and not Yami. Gozaburo most assuredly didn't waste any time on the youngest. Yami had supposed it was an age thing until Yugi Motou had been paraded in. At twenty Yami had long since moved out, he almost missed Yugi's arrival, he simply came home from active duty cutting up rebels one day to find the eight year old at the dinner table. Seto at fourteen had been too old to care and too important to Gozaburo to merit enduring any trouble. Mokuba however was eleven to Yugi's eight and must've supposed he had a chance to be an authority for once. It failed however. Yugi didn't socialize well or at all and Mokuba was not at all the type of playmate to endure Yugi anyway. Within days Yugi had proven he was going to be the nastiest member of the playpen and Mokuba was rather offended. Yami didn't blame him but it perpetuated some bad blood.

They were little things, old things, nursery nonsenses that had meant so little then or since until now. Now the old foulness between Mokuba and Yugi was solidified into something of a national division over the throne. Now it was dangerous. Now Seto's refusal to ever lose any argument with Yami might cost him his head.

Still Yami recalled most of it as old celluloid fragments. Seto's twelfth birthday which had gone awry when he had broken into a tantrum about having to have a party and had ended with Yami, eighteen and surly, having to find him in attic before the press arrived. Mokuba's grades at thirteen, upon entering secondary education, which Gozaburo had ignored and which Yami at twenty two had made an effort to fuss over out of paternal sympathy and mild affection. He remembered too when Yugi was eight, blisteringly adorable and ridiculously foul, and they had run out of room on the royal barge for some damn procession and Yami had been forced to cloister up the tiny tyrant in his lap for the event. Yugi had been insufferable until the jousting which they both rather enjoyed. Yami had explained the points system, a very passionate soldier then, and Yugi had been simply rapt.

Now glancing out over the river from the tower where he had essentially his cousins or proxy-siblings under arrest Yami was all grown and embittered. Now he held Yugi in a very different way. Now Seto played very different games. Now… now it was just all too nasty, too political, yet so very necessary somehow.

Yami had been so angry for such a very long time once almost as aggressive as Yugi was currently. Loathe of his uncle in ways he could never quite word or fathom as a small child. As he aged Yami knew he was trapped. He couldn't speak a bad word and he had been raised well but there was always the resentment. This should've all have been his. He knew, even petite, that he should've been Emperor. Yet Yami wasn't for no good reason aside from the greed of the man who instead of his father should've been his protector. Yami knew, suspected, at eleven that Gozaburo had a messy hand in the demise of his parents. He'd read enough gory history. His passions, his resentment, his frustration had turned to mischief and violence in the bear trap vacuum courtiers existed in. Yami could've railed but he had no allies as a young man. He could've protested but he would've been beheaded. You played nice to accrue favour however you despised your patron.

Then Yami had gotten older and even more disillusioned and his anger had collapsed into sourness. He had no faith in human beings as creatures of mercy. They were fools ninety nine precent of them. Happy cattle cannon fodder for whatever you gave them. Yami had boxed any ambition or pride into being his own caricature of composure and told himself he didn't want anything. He told himself being Emperor was too much of a bother, that he didn't care, that there wasn't a tiny little infant somewhere inside his blackened heart screaming out for his father to come home and fix it all and give him a happier history to fall back on.

Heba…

Heba had certainly changed all that. Loathe as Yami was to admit it, loathe as he was to accept defeat in the argument, Heba had been offering him exactly what he desperately wanted. Heba had come through for him. Heba had never wavered and relentlessly exploited any opportunity to force some life back into him. Devious, crass, and incessant as the young man was Yami was indebted to his secretive assistant from the laboratories. He hated that. Stubbornly and for no real, mature, reason other than a mollified dislike of his own cowardice which Heba had so lovingly called onto display before him.

He owed Heba. He would repay him, richly, and Heba would quite adore it. Yet Yami never fooled himself into believing Heba wanted anything so simply material as money or as mundane as love. Heba would ask for complex payments, parasitic, and Yami might slave to the reparations for years. Heba however was not Yugi, whatever their strange similarities and Yami found himself perhaps more indebted to Yugi if only because he found he liked Yugi with more tenderness than he felt for Heba. Heba was difficult to coddle with all those teeth.

* * *

(Track- Heather Alexander "Faerie Queen")

Heba could get used to this. Yami Sennen spread a little too thin to notice this or that, Gozaburo gone, Motou mollified, the Kaiba twins neutered, the Republic pushed back… lots of nice, neat, little lines. A few more tweaks and he'd have the new design finished. He'd get the party started.

"Anything else Sir?"

"Vault twelve," Heba announced eyes never leaving the screen. "I want files D through Z incinerated."

Succession was a perfect distraction. By the time Yami Sennen was back to the business of actually running a country this and that would've gone missing without anyone's notice. Poof, gone, clean. Sennen would never miss it. No one would. A few old files that hadn't been touched in a decade written by scientists who were now regrettably, Heba laughed, deceased. So much for keeping a straight face, he supposed this was why he stayed off camera.

Mindless drone thirty-six (or forty-two? Heba always confused them) scuttled back to work. Peace and quiet, tranquillity, restored he let the screens bubble past him.

_Classified?  
_  
Cute.

_Password required?  
_  
Not anymore.

_Firewall?  
_  
Gone.

_For Level Six Security Personnel Only?_

Were there any of those left? Heba checked. Nope. His then.

Sometimes it helped to have a four digit IQ. Now then, leaning in, what was the old haggard king hiding here? Another botched civilian massacre? Hmm, no… illegal experimentation? Oh yummy! Heba's favourite!

_Subject 7-13 Omega_

He scrolled, teasing and scanning really. You'd seen one set of lab rats and manmade funguses you'd seen them all. Was the file worth saving or trashing in his great secret purge while Yami Sennen was looking the other way was the real question. He scrolled a little faster. Deep sea diving…Research Division… yadda-yadda….

_Uh-oh_

Heba stalled. There was a sensation suddenly, something he didn't quite recognize immediately, and then to his own surprise he realized it was panic. His mind flooded, both hands found the keyboard, and the mental dialogue started combusting at the seams.

No. No. That couldn't be. He fixed that ages ago. Yonks, done, buried and burned, mistake gone. Plague, cleansing, extermination, pest control, eradication, genocide, mass fatalities, induced famine- He'd cleaned, perfected, devoured till sated and downright _consumed_-

Oh.

As quickly as it had come the sensation of feeling was gone.

It was just an itsy-bitsy one then.

Oh, well, that wasn't so bad.

He could kill one. He'd killed plenty of little ones. He'd wiped out the whole godforsaken little hive when the things made a mess of his earlier projects. This one had been diffused and modernized anyway by less skilled hands. Its systems would be docile, fat, lazy and stupid like everything else in the empire. Heba relaxed. The EX0D1A no longer seemed such a looming engineering nightmare at the back of his mind.

Yes, actually that explained the EX0D1A and the Z0-RC. Given that, contrary to popular belief, Gozaburo wasn't ridiculously stupid. He was inane and useless for Heba's purposes yes but he wasn't a total blithering moron. No the EX0D1A and Z0-RC projects made sense in that context. Gozaburo had a proper plan in constructing them but now he was gone, now Heba was home, he could dismantle that quietly enough without Yami Sennen ever catching wind of the development. Then the machine would be a wasted hunk of mechanics, an oversized paperweight, and it would be business as usual while he built the newest creation of his.

Today was a good day.

* * *

1 Mega Heba hints this chapter or at least some questions answered  
2 Yes, I just totally threw that little "Gozaburo is going to be the big bad/Revolution" subplot right out the window~ so the real question is: what's next?  
3 Smut between Yugi and Yami is close don't panic!

HINT SONGS  
_Yami/Heba  
_Little Shop of Horrors "Suppertime"  
Little Shop of Horrors "Feed Me/Get it"

Princess and the Frog "Friends on the Other Side"  
Glee duet "Smooth Criminal"

_Heba_

Little Mermaid Broadway "I want the Good Times Back"  
Pink "Bad Influence"  
Good with Grenades "Bruises and Bitemarks"  
Adam Lambert "For Your Entertainment"  
Hilary Duff "Gypsy Woman"  
_+ Sucker Punch 04 "I want it all/We will rock you" (this is basically his theme song)_

**Next Time: **Yami and Yugi finally get a moment alone, Dartz tries to talk peace, Katsuya has a plan, Seto doesn't and Heba gives his two cents.


	11. Chapter 11

New chapter, new week, the usual suspects and the usual chaos so please enjoy!

* * *

CHAPTER ELEVEN

(Track- "Gothic Storm- In The Next life" Chris Haig)

It was done. People had filed out into the streets to cheer which was reasonably unexpected inside the palace. Mokuba and Seto had been formally disgraced, dispossessed, as counterfeit princes in the last sun bristled hours of the afternoon on national television. Live and everything. Yugi had watched from the tower, his adopted relatives at their table witnesses to the whole procession which had brought everything about their projected futures crumbling back messily.

That settled they'd railed back security to actual soldiers. Normal ones with rifles who were just the first sign that Seto and Mokuba Kaiba had been forgotten. They weren't important anymore. They were nobodies in just a few days after decades as royalty. It was bizarre and cold. They would sit in that tower, without any attention or preference, till they answered the Minster's ultimatum for peaceful surrender of their titles or till they were shuffled out to the block. Yugi had almost expected a resistance movement but Gozaburo was never really popular and no one had ever gotten a good look at Seto the hermit. No one cared. They remembered Yami Sennen, they saw him on the news, he won wars. So in an almost painfully efficient manner a lifetime would be swept aside and in a few weeks Sennen would be crowned. Even before the official coronation however he was now totally Emperor de facto. Exit the challenger.

It was nearly sad to Yugi. It shouldn't have been. He told himself he didn't give a rat's but… it was just so anti-climatic he found it hard to stomach. That two people, two very public people, could just be put aside so casually scared him. He was public, a celebrity, and a weapon and one day he'd be shelved too. Would he be alone? Would anyone notice? Would there be a riot or a peep in the street if he disappeared tomorrow? There wasn't so much as a winkle when thousands of soldiers died. Yeah, that scared Yugi. Being displaced, abandoned to die in a way that left nothing but memory-less silence terrified him.

Someone must've agreed with him because when the streets cleared and the cameras left it started to rain. From the late inky afternoon it strengthened into a torrent through the night till the mixed, almost spring, days of the last week were obscured by winter greyness. Yugi found himself shuffled into a car under a black, starless, sky in a thick endless pattering of rain that rang against the windows.

He tugged his jacket in. He hadn't been there for the press release. He'd spent the past few days so cloistered in the tower he hadn't had a proper chance to change, sleep or bathe. He'd expected a fight, he'd been recruited for one, but now it was over without contest and he'd been shoved into another stuffy limo. Sleep seemed so far off given the meeting or whatever else they wanted him for now but he would've paid up for the chance to hit his own sheets.

"We're here Sir."

"Where's here?" Yugi grumbled chin in his shoulder from a daze.

"Ministerial Palace for Defence, Sir."

He sighed. What now? Sennen and the Ministry would have to forgive him if the upturn today had left him mildly morose. He found the door handle, all plastic, over squelching seat covers and stepped out into the pounding rain. He could've waited for the umbrella but he chose instead to dash up the steps under the arch of the entryway dousing himself effectively in a few chilled seconds like he'd run through a waterfall.

Yugi did a cursory glance back the car which stalled as if trying to decide what to do and caught the sky overhead. God it was so pitch tonight. The whole heavens blanketed. He left it to resume his way to the door.

There was more security this time. Sennen's almost empty Palace was now blanketed with attendants. They were precautions no doubt and things which the Minister, Emperor now, would have to accustom himself to. Maids bustling everywhere, guards and cameras, and locks and keys Yugi himself had never been able to stand the eyes of. He had liked Sennen's palace that night a little while ago. It had been so quiet, so devoid, with no one on sight help but a weekly maintenance clean-up crew, a smattering of perimeter security staff and Sennen all locked up by his lonesome. The building was alive now, lights on in almost every window and Yugi suddenly didn't approve of the imposing visage anymore.

He got an escort inside, had to show his clearance card of all things holy, but when he reached the top of the stairs to the third floor they utterly dissipated into nonexistence to let him roam unattended.

"Sennen?" He called sticking his head in the nearest open door parlour. The word caught on his tongue. Was it _Majesty_ now too? He wouldn't get used to that quickly.

"There you are."

See, this was why Yugi barged in on him so often. Every time he reported to an expectantly waiting Yami Sennen he felt like he was late.

It was comic though the way he found himself leaning into one open door while Sennen stuck his head out the opposing twin directly across the hallway. He closed his door, Sennen opened his wider book still perched in one palm spread paged and beckoned. Yugi faltered but approached, Sennen snapped the leather sides shut between his fingers and didn't move back.

"You're soaked," he appraised, free palm batting idly at Yugi's fringe and falling hot on his cheek.

What was all this?

"What'd you need me for this time?" Yugi mumbled, taken aback but never withdrew.

"I wanted to see you."

"I don't feel like anything tonight." He confronted.

"Neither do I."

"What then?" Yugi sighed. _If you don't want to fuck me what do you want? Make up your mind._ This was unnatural. Yugi hated being in the dark, not knowing what was going on, it made him feel vulnerably stupid.

"Dry you off and then sleep I should think," Sennen shrugged, "unless you'd rather leave. I can arrange that."

He could arrange anything now.

"That's all?" Yugi snorted but when he did the man's face changed and he found himself compelled to avert his eyes. "I'm hired company am I?"

"I thought you made it very clear that in this autocracy your company is a privilege you can withhold at any time." Sennen nearly grinned. It was strange. Then more softly prompted, always proper; "let me dry you off before you catch something."

"Okay," he surrendered uncharacteristically docile.

The palm fluttered down, fastened round his waist, drawing him in to shut the rest of the world out. Sennen made the book disappear somewhere between the door and the fireplace of the shady room. By the crackling hearth he took Yugi's waist back in hand, drawing him close, and began fumbling languidly with his little gold crested buttons.

"I can do that," Yugi argued weakly.

"Yes," he acknowledged, parting the folds of the breasted jacket, "but you'll let me."

"Why?" The pilot challenged.

"So I can touch you."

He did. Though Yugi considered throwing a tantrum and insisting upon doing it himself he was too tired to argue. That had never stopped him before mind but… Sennen was gentle, Yugi could consent to him. So he became as permissive and pliant as he'd ever been. The rain, brief as his exposure was, had sunk infectious through his clothing to chill the skin. Yami's hands were warm over his hip, the small of his back, brushing as his fringe here or there. Yugi allowed himself to be stripped both hot palms gliding over his backside then back up his flanks in the general grasp of Sennen's arms.

"I'm fine," he mumbled when Sennen pulled the blanket off the back of the lounge and draping fastened it wrapped round him.

"You're stubborn." He countered.

Yugi opened his mouth to counter, it almost happened, then Sennen kissed his brow between the damp strands of his fringe and he shut up again. That was dangerous. He couldn't find it in him to cause a fuss. Sennen had snuffed out the light, the crassness, for a while.

That was how he found himself on the floor across Sennen's lap. His knees bent over the Emperor's crossed thigh, toes almost by the hearth, the soles of his feet on the carpet, cheek on the man's clavicle. Yugi wasn't meant to be a calm person, it was counter his nature, and yet….

"I thought you didn't want-"

"I don't." He defended blandly cutting Yugi back.

Silenced Yugi let his temple slump back into the elder's shoulder attempting to feign aloof ignorance to the smooth hand wandering under the carefully constructed folds of blanket. The coils of his spine tightened, ultrasensitive, at the plucking meandering of Sennen's fingertips down between his arms. He dipped between Yugi's forearms to push his whole hand flat against the pilot's navel and Yugi drew his teeth over his bottom lip as he lost a little air. It was so warm, heavy, on his skin Yugi forgot the exact motions of inhalation. It rested there a moment. It was a stupidly arcane gesture, simple, as if the Emperor was some foraging demon, some choir boy sticking his hands under Yugi's clothes or worse some more ancient King trying to feel his young in Yugi's unresponsive belly.

Simple yes but effective triple fold if only because it nudged the back door of Yugi's mind. Did Sennen know how to play his strings or was he just lucky? Maybe Yugi was just raw to his every gesture somehow. Maybe it was just that it was Sennen that made him notice or respond. He brushed that idea back and apparently on his own train of thought Yami (using the name felt fractionally less strange now) tripling ran his fingers up.

"Hn," Yugi stifled it. It was a miniscule sound but so closely enfolded as they were Yami probably heard it.

The pad of his thumb ran over the pebbled bud of Yugi's nipple, brushing, and scraping his nail encircled the engorged skin lingeringly. Yugi knew he was coiling in, awakened to a new kind of alertness under the ministrations of that hand and the shimmer of electricity it sent to his groin. When they were rough and messy he was in control but when they were whatever_ this_ was then Sennen had the strings.

"_Hn_, stop it," he pestered softly as Yami pressed the bud between two fingers with increasing pressure the nail of a third digit scraping ever so weakly over the tip. "Stop…"

The arm cradling his torso cleaved Yugi into Yami's chest, twisting him round uncomfortably so Sennen could squeeze his shoulder and kiss wetly at the exposed curve of his neck. Yugi nearly crumbled under the full set. Lips messaging a pulse point absentmindedly while that hot hand sandwiched between them strayed to opposing side of Yugi's chest.

"Ready and waiting," Sennen teased gently, when he found the second already hardened tip to brush at.

Yugi closed his eyes fingers fisting and easing in the other's layers of fabric. Yami was wearing too much. Wait…since when was he Yami?

"I've got you," he murmured in reassurance, lips melding into Yugi's cheek.

_Shit_. Yugi dug his teeth into his pouting bottom lip hard enough to bruise. Air was getting very hard to come by as he rubbed his knees into each other. This wasn't much, hardly even making out, light petting but still he- _Damn it_. Yugi struggled to formulate an appropriate sentence.

"What are you doing?" Yeah, perfect genius.

"Touching you," Sennen shrugged. "I don't have an evil plan unfortunately."

"Could've fooled me," he grumbled weakly. _Oh, stop that, I can't take that_…

"Lie down?" He offered. "I'm exhausted."

Yugi nodded. _Hold me_. Deft limbs folded round him with practice to hoist him into the man's arms and Yugi rued that Sennen was getting way too good at his, too accustomed to carrying him and plopping him down wherever he chose. Yet Yami lifted him, held him, kissed the bridge of his nose absently and Yugi curled to him without any great complaint. Fuck. Permissive.

A fraction of the heat between them evaporated as Yugi was deposited on the bed. Under the blankets he waited for the new Emperor to unfasten his boots at the edge of the mattress. Next went the blazer, the shirt and the belt all to floor carelessly. Ruddy mixed body heat formulated next to Yugi under the sheets, Yami hauled him close, and tangling they whispered back into silence.

* * *

(Track- "In the next life" + "Rainy mood" play them at the same time~)

Yami felt better in the morning even if it was still raining. Mot- _Yugi _(he had a hard time displacing the latter with the former anymore given how the_ Y_ seemed to roll off his tongue) was out cold like the greying ash in the fire place. Hair rumpled, skin soft, he was difficult to resist. Yami had no interest in peeling off as his lips dampened patches of the boy's face, arm snug round his middle, as he allowed his breathing to modify. The bleakness through the windows was disorientating to his sense of time and place but he knew it was time to rise. He had a coronation to book, he snorted, and sighing through his yawn kissed again.

He wasn't aware of the specific complexities of why he wanted Yugi here with him or why he had sent for him last night without any sexual intentions but it seemed not to matter. He pulled the blankets back up round the child as he rose tucking Yugi under piles of cotton and down. He was a lovely thing Yugi Motou especially when he was quite or soft. Asleep the peace of his expression was hook enough to lure Yami back to bed under normal circumstances even if he forced himself to disengage.

"What am I going to do with you?" He whispered tugging back the curtains. So much to do, so little time and a chemistry with the petite pilot that wouldn't be dismissed. The longing was thick and even after these past few months Yami knew his sexual appetite hadn't diminished.

"Hmm…" Yugi moaned tween tight lips, nestling. "What's…?"

"Morning, work," Yami answered dully. "Stay there. Have a day off."

"_M'_m fine…"

"I know." He answered evenly. "Sleep, it's the perfect day for it."

"_M'_sure?"

"Yes," Yami realized he was close to smiling somehow, "I'm certain. Tell the maids if you need anything."

_Eat my food, steal my shower, spend all day in my bed_… what a ridiculous notion. Yami should've traded himself out with Yugi, replaced them, and spent the day lounging himself but given the option he preferred this. Yami was never done. He could finish everything and still feel there was paper work left over he'd misplaced or forgotten.

Hm, no… Yami raked his eyes back over the bed. Rather than leave he very much would've like to make up for lost time. It felt far too long since he'd last had a chance to do everything he desired with the other. Did he have time? He didn't want to rush.

Fuck it, he decided, stripping back his dressing gown from where he'd taken it up. He was Emperor. They'd damn well wait for him.

"Huh?" Yugi blinked groggily as he folded aside the sheets to reveal the pilot. "What?"

"Shh," he pleaded gently dismissive, "I just need you for a moment."

"Hn," Yugi slackened on the mattress pliantly.

* * *

(Tracks- "Rainy Mood" + Lupe Fiasco "Fighters")

It was very akin to the last time they'd been intimate, very gentle. Oh when Yami sunk _in_…Deep breaths. Yami had held his hips while Yugi settled atop his and watched the pilot flex that lithe, milky, form. Yugi's body was softer, it gave in, moulded under Yami's fingers and when they were done Yami had no trouble laying the boy back to bed to doze as he dressed for his first grand day of sovereignty. He found a pleasure in leaving Yugi Motou in his own bed. Call him sadistic or some such.

Yami was sure he could still catch ghosts of the pilot's natural aroma when he reached his desk. He closed his eyes, waiting for the satellite feed to load, Mahado peppering in his ear and he could feel downy arms hung round his neck, the tip of a cold nose under his jaw. His fingers flexed for someone to hold. There was something remedial about having satisfied those creeping urges to touch Yugi Motou. It was healthier than cigarettes if a considerably more expensive and complex poison. Waiting, the call screen in front of him screeching out a dial tone for the video call, Yami ached to have the boy's weight on his thighs. His arms were empty.

It was a strange infection for someone who didn't approve of people as a general rule. Yugi Motou didn't appear to understand their new condition either but he responded to Yami's touch with even greater intensity than before. Yami desired to be desired after all. Still he didn't consider himself romantic perse. Especially not given how cruel, cold, he'd become in his own way. He wasn't some inhumane dictator no but in a very normal, natural, way Yami was detached from compassion.

Love… well he'd tried it, tasted it, when he was younger but he'd found in every encounter whatever didn't amount to lust and endorphins was hardly selfless. People called it love when they kept another human being round to parasitically feed off the approval of some other. They compromised, hid their own self-loathing in projecting on another, it was… Love was shitty, messy _bullshit_. It wasn't selfless, never jealous, never proud but then again, disparagingly, Yami Sennen had never had a successful loving role model. Gozaburo had whores not lovers and the fact Yami respect women at all with miraculous. Yet, for better or worse, he realized he liked Yugi's claves flexing gently round his hips with sleepy mumbles more than he liked Motou's biting teeth when they beat each other into the desk top.

"_Connecting_," the computer chirped, drawing Yami's attention from Yugi Motou's ghost scent.

* * *

(Tracks- same as above)

"_Connecting._"

"Chris go, go," Dartz urged in a moment of fluster plopping the excited, ignorant, child out of his lap with some urging. "Go to Mama Baby."

She giggled, running on fat little legs, and beckoning urgently from the doorway his wife leant to sweep her up apologetically. Dartz managed to force a smile to her and always a woman of great understanding his _gorgeous_ wife raised her crossed index and middle fingers to his attention supportively as she cradled his precious baby girl. What was that old idiom? Behind every great man there was an even greater woman making sure he didn't make an ass of himself? Yeah, that.

The screen cleared, video feed becoming clear and stiffening like a blow up doll Dartz prepped internally for the twelfth time. He said a little prayer. Come on God, he owed his daughter a college tuition at a Bohemian university in a future where public education was still in a good state and Bohemia was still unoccupied.

"Evening, President Dartz?"

"Morning to you. Emperor Sennen? Or would you prefer…?" He supposed.

"That will suffice perfectly," the other consented politely. "It's a pleasure to finally speak with you properly."

"The pleasure's all mine." Yep, it was, they were on tender hooks. The Republic was teetering on the edge of the chasm. This man had Siege and Dartz had a weak, increasing, but untrained army. Please God. "I heard a great deal about you from your predecessor."

"I can imagine," Sennen chuckled, there wasn't much between them age wise but Dartz would consent the militant was better looking. "I do hope that I prove to be more amiable, reasonable, than my predecessor. Uncle Gozaburo was from another generation."

"He was certainly…" Dartz struggled. Sennen had disposed his cousins and his uncle as a traitor. How offensive did he want Dartz to be to the dead dictator? "Stubborn let's say."

"Heh," Sennen chuckled back in acknowledgement, "sweet words."

"Baby put me off swearing."

"Congratulations," he tilted his head. "Shall we get down to business?"

"Let's." Brass tax time, come on, Dartz needed a new pair of shoes he swore in his mental mantra. It was positive thinking time.

"I'm sure you understand that currently Cyprus is tremulous during what is, for us, a period of great historical transitioning." Sennen prefaced. "Regrettably what that means in practice is until I assume this seat completely, until the coronation and the settling of government from the old class, my ministry isn't in any condition to organize anything above the current cease fire. I simply don't have the resources and information that I would like assembled to begin proper negotiations."

"That I understand," Dartz permitted, knowing he couldn't push.

"Let me assure you however," Sennen clarified, "until the post-mortem of the coronation the cease fire will stand for us."

"I hope then I can have your secure promise of official peace negotiations afterwards."

"As I said," he repeated smoothly, "I hope to prove more reasonable than my predecessor but I do not have all the information I require to make an informed decision. I hope you understand. Please take the cease fire as a sign of our good faith."

Was that the Royal plural? Maybe, but then Dartz realized this was Sennen signing off. Shit.

"Until we speak again," Sennen continued, sure enough. Apparently this discussion, brisk and business, was over and totally on Imperial terms. Royal _Fuck_.

"Have a good morning Emperor Sennen."

"Enjoy your evening President."

"_Call Disconnected_."

Zip. Just like that and he was gone. Dartz sagged back. Well it was something at least. Nothing in writing, not even in firm wording, but it was an attempt at politics over warfare or in replacement of. He didn't doubt Sennen could lock them in a treaty corner but anything would be better than continuing a losing battle front. He cradled his face. Gozaburo Kaiba had utterly shot down all attempts to negotiate, refused to speak with him and called him several crass things on a few stolen occasions of attempted conversation. The old tyrant had been totally unreachable. Sennen would speak to him but he was harder to tie down into specifics.

Sennen might not be much better. He was _the_ militant. The Imperial war leader now had the throne and he would know how close they were to toppling Bohemia. Would he continue in the kind he knew? If anything Sennen might just have superior cunning over his utterly loathsome uncle. The man certainly had a stick up his ass of some sort formal, controlling…_ick_. They were so stuffy in the Empire, old school traditionalists from the old world with all the ornaments that made them proud of their complete lack of democracy.

Then there was the fact Motou was far from neutralized. Kid got increasingly dangerous every summer. He was a nightmare and he was now Sennen's supporter, the jewel in the crown, the sword backing the claim. Would he really want peace being the raging lunatic Dartz understood him to be?

"Sorry Baby," Dartz sighed to his empty office, no secure future yet.

Better not throw out Horakhty's dancing shoes.

* * *

(Track- "Tidal" Imogen Heap)

Yugi slept till ten in the morning. Yugi hadn't slept till ten since… _ever_. Literally. He had a theory Sennen was slipping him sedatives, mood stabilizers, aphrodisiacs or all of the above. It was a work in progress till he could narrow down the exact prescription cocktail but he had a suspicion he was getting it orally. Effective method though Yugi couldn't fault that. It was eerie as hell to wake in another man's bed- No, no, okay the weirdest thing was waking _his_ bed. Waking in another man's bed? Yeah, Yugi could deal with that, but waking in Yami Sennen's bed _twice?_ No that was apocalypse level weird. Waking in between those specific sheets, finding the clock and slouching into the musk of sweat was going to end the world _somehow_. That was another work in progress theory.

So Yugi ran. Not literally because he had chauffers (classy) but metaphorically he hauled ass out of there. He stole the amenities, dressed and by noon was in the back seat of a limo out of the Sennen residence. He felt guilty. Fucking Christ he felt guilty for not following orders. That was a statistical improbability to begin with. Top it off with the specifics that he felt guilty because he'd refused Yami Sennen's '_stay in bed all day like a lazy cow_' order and Yugi must've had a terminal brain tumour.

"Wow, you're going for it today," Katsuya praised tapping the display of the stationed bike in the gym.

Yugi always fled to the gym. Call it a reflex action. His tagalongs followed him. He was beginning to think his little trinity of subordinates didn't have any life outside of their new knighthood underneath him. Either they were devoted or they enjoyed spending time with him (_ha!_ Yugi made himself laugh). The blonde hugged him pretty close too out of the three. Jonouchi must've wanted a promotion or to steal some tips to maybe overthrow Yugi from his crown of military superiority one day. Good for him.

"Give me another three and twelve seconds and I'll get off this thing and kick your ass." He diverted casually.

"Don't know about that," Katsuya laughed, "I'm getting better."

"Sure." Yugi permitted bored. Yeah, he was getting better just not Yugi level better. Okay Yugi was a proud ass but what did anyone expect? Born and raised that way. If you wanted to you could blame Gozaburo.

"You kay?" The blonde pestered. "What did Sennen want to see you about last night anyway?"

"The Emperor you mean," Yugi corrected eyes straight ahead, finding that flustered the blonde. "Top secret shit." That was technically true but Yugi didn't care about lying.

"That's so cool."

"Whatever."

"You know one day I'm going to be as numb to this cool shit as you are."

"Keep practicing then," Yugi snorted.

"Heh," Jonouchi laughed. "Be Christmas in a month or a bit. Guys were thinking about celebrating big."

"Ask Mahado for permission if you want it."

"Nah, fuck permission," he shrugged and Yugi realized he must've rubbed off on them. "You want to come with I mean?"

"I guess," Yugi mumbled, "but if you get arrested I'm not posting bail."

"Figured," the blonde grinned. "Just give me a flow chart of what to do if you get arrested."

"I've got a laminated copy lying around somewhere." He smirked.

"Believe it."

* * *

(Tracks- "It's Amazing" Gem + "Rainy Mood")

"You can do whatever you need to do," Seto assured him. "You should take Sennen's offer. You'll get a good career. He'll take care of you."

"I don't want him to take care of me." Mokuba groaned leaning into the woodwork. "You're worth so much more than I am to any of them. You're a genius. If Motou didn't have your weapons-"

"It wouldn't make any difference," he shrugged, "I've seen the response reports. You could give Motou a can opener and he'd win the war."

Mokuba turned his mouth into his hand. His entire intestinal tract had scrunched up in raw panic. He knew his eyes were about to burn but he couldn't take showing it. He was twenty-three, too grown up to cry, and not in front of lackey guards. He needed to shout. The words hanging onto his tongue were, specifically, _'don't be a fucking martyr!_' and directed right at the Crown Prince.

He was contorted into knots. Seto would be, he knew, an _amazing_ Emperor if he could direct himself to the enterprise but one the other hand he knew that it wasn't what Seto longed for. Seto wanted to build things, military toys, and he was so mindlessly stubborn about his goals however narrow minded. Realistically? Anyone would vouch for Sennen but… Mokuba couldn't stand this. It would've been easier if he had his brother's backing but he was wedged between Seto and Sennen now.

The prick had given them a way out. Their titles had been surrendered but they might be able to gain new ones if they accrued favour. They had to consent to a whole shopping list of conditions however which basically surmounted to the complete abolishing of their privacy for the next twenty years. Mokuba and Seto had to consent to work under royal patronage and without any of the royal estates they would have to live wherever Sennen _put_ them. Mokuba couldn't stand it though, he groaned into his palms, if Seto would do it then he would follow suit the loyalist little brother he was.

Seto wouldn't consent to anything however. Yami had set off their old competitive natures afresh. It was a wildfire of illogic and intelligibility in his brother. You couldn't argue with Seto's ego when it reared its ugly head. For the sake of winning, one way or another, Seto would bash his head against the wall. It was the total definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result or in this case waiting for the wall to back down. Sennen never revoked, he was too serious to be flippant about decisions but Seto would never relent in the quest for his own way.

"You don't even want to be King!" Mokuba hissed suddenly unable to help himself. "Just agree to the terms and things will go back to normal, arrested development and everything."

"No." Seto grunted arms crossed stubbornly. "I refuse."

"Why?" He spat_. Come on genius try and articulate this without sounding stupid to yourself._

"Sennen won't kill us for treason." Seto insisted. "I don't care if I'm not Emperor but I'm going to live how I damn well please, on my own terms and to my own comfort. Until he offers me a better deal I refuse to buy into this nonsense."

"If you don't buy into this bullocks he'll _execute_you."

"No he won't." The Prince baulked with a scoff.

"Fine, maybe he won't," Mokuba changed tacts, "but you can bet the rest of his lunatics will if they think you're a threat, which you are, and let's say Sennen doesn't kill you: he could keep us in this godforsaken tower for _decades!_"

"You don't have to stay," Seto repeated. "Go take the deal. I'm not having you stuffed up here."

"No!" He railed tartly. "You're the only family I have left! I'm staying with you till you stop acting like a moron!"

"Albatross," Seto corrected. "I'm not an idiot. I'm an albatross."

"What does that even mean?" Mokuba screeched.

"If Sennen slaughters me he'll regret it and he knows it."

"Seto…" he whined. He wanted to be back at the University, in a clustered library, pretending he didn't exist and blushing at the librarian with the only friends he had who didn't treat him like a scar for studying philosophy. He could see it when he closed his eyes. His little Utopia was slipping away. "I'm not leaving you."

"Then we wait," Seto shrugged mildly, if fractionally less obnoxious. "Get the deck if you're staying. Poker or twenty-one?"

* * *

(Track- "Rainy Mood")

Yami scanned the bedroom in a glance mind overlapping his vision with maps from the control room, reports from the Senate and coronation fitting schedules. He was on clerical overload. He just needed a moment of greedy self-indulgence to re-stabilize.

"He's not here," Heba called airily from the window seat, "he left."

"Had a little chat did you?" Yami grumbled warily turning over the bed sheets as if Motou or his glass slipper might manifest upon closer inspection.

"Not my type," the other preened softly. "How was your chat with the President?"

"So you really do know everything eh?" He grunted tossing back down the sheets, "mild, lukewarm."

"So what shall we do about this war?"

"I don't know," he sighed raising his hand to his face. He'd bought time.

"Yes you do."

"I…" Yami hesitated. Heba had become very brazen suddenly, lounging against the glass as he confronted the Emperor.

"You know." Heba repeated calmly. So cold, always, without any surface falter. Not for the first time Yami considered what he was dealing with; the soft cooing and the icy, sharp, edges that were revealed when he drew back the blanket of docility.

"I suppose…" He fumbled tiredly. Must not show fear, he reminded, must not show weakness and must never crack under those deep, dark, seeping eyes. He knew he didn't need to explain himself. Rambles came easy given Heba ate up half his thoughts without Yami ever having to voice them. It was like a scrambled radio. Only two percent of what they had was verbal. "It's hardly a humane or long term solution-"

"It's the correct answer. That's the wondrous thing about _truth_ it doesn't depend upon _feelings_ or _belief_. I am truth. You will not weaken now."

Oh, when they crept to this edge, when Heba revealed that metaphysical danger lurking underneath the skin Yami shrivelled withering at his own anxiety. Seeping, spreading, mental infection he was Heba was difficult to raise a voice to without a sound argument or a razor strong will.

"Truth prevails. Truth is unstoppable." Heba emphasized nonchalantly. "If you're ambitious enough to be the greatest, mine, then you're forced to be relentless in the search of truth. They'll love you for it."

He knew. Oh Heba knew every single thing that crept, swam, or hissed crawling and lurking inside Yami's subconscious. Heba was, if such a thing could exist, the foliage of that rich soil half imaginings or nightmares and half old temptations. Yami Sennen wanted to be wanted. Yami Sennen was angry, resentful, and filled with longings. He prided himself on composure, on being the logical voice of sanity, the leader and the appropriate answer. He knew he was being exploited but knowing that was only half the fight against this siren song of temptations coming from his closest council. Heba spoke, murmured really, things Yami hadn't the strength to vocalize and it was empowering, invigorating, devouring... Yami was_ Emperor_. Yami had won. He had new power. He could hardly imagine stopping.

Heba was a human manifestation of hunger. How such a being could've been raised, or formed, or who would've mothered him, was as mysterious to Yami as what womb could've produced the great heralded archetypal hero that was Atem Horakhty or the force of nature, spirit of war, sublime destructive power that was Yugi Motou. Heba was one of whatever breed of personhood they were. Just as rare and as dangerous. Heba was all the genius of Seto with four times the safe level of hazardous, manipulative, spiralling and weaving… Yami lacked the word. Poison in the ear.

Would he let Heba win this argument?

* * *

1 The Albatross is a reference to the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" which is an epic poem. Basically the mariner kills an albatross, for no reason, and hence damns himself to a journey of redemption for the sin of murder without provocation (original sin essentially is the metaphor).

Next time: a rendezvous in Yami's office, changes, decisions, and a coronation while in Bohemia Atem sees a ghost.


	12. Chapter 12

Hey guys! Argh I'm gonna hit round the YGO Wikia but that aside hope you enjoy this week~ The smut is back!

* * *

CHAPTER TWELVE

(Track- "How Come You're Not Here?" Pink)

Yugi had trigger itch. He hadn't blown _anything_ up in a couple of weeks. Frankly that was a dangerous arms related situation both nations should've been working on. Hazardous on a nuclear level was the pressure Yugi Motou could build up inside his overwrought heart. His whole form itched for activity, blood, mud and general action. He had a fixed mech, he had a passport and an arch rival to go wrap in his own freed intestines. Fucking cease fire. This coronation had better be worth recording or Yugi was going to protest.

"Yo! Yugi!"

"What?" He called from the fastened bike.

He was living in the gym and sleeping inside the combat simulator (_metaphorically_) now to keep himself from feeling chronically unamused. He was so slick with sweat by noon most days he was going to have to get new work out gear soon. Still hours fastened in a dull room required distractions of their own for his mind as well as his limber form. So eyes trained on day time TV he'd actually started following some dreadful soap. Not deeply just that he'd let it run over him so much now that he knew who was sleeping with who, who was an evil twin and all that. It was mildly engrossing. Serena was going to snap at some point in the next three days and like murder a family of four or something if Eric didn't get his shit together.

"HQ called," Jounouchi explained slinking in from where his tagalongs had been camping out in their quest to follow him like a bad smell, "the Emperor wants you at the palace."

"Fan-tucking-fastic," he sighed.

So Sennen had cracked after three weeks had he? _Thank Christ_. Yugi was so, _so_, incredibly wet and desperate at this point he might shatter. Not that he'd ever admit it. That was for girls and pussies (same thing if he was being immature).

He bunny hoped off the plastic, fingers lacing, reaching his arms high over his head to stretch down. Should he change? Argh, effort, but Sennen was so fussy, being a proper bastard, that Yugi didn't want to risk not getting a hot palm sliding up his thighs sometime day. Devious idea number three thousand and forty six popped up. It encompassed: a shower and a change of clothes but in style to guarantee the distraction of Mister Nationalism.

Commence operation.

* * *

(Track- "The Truth About Love" Pink)

No. Bad _sex-ba-bomb-_ pilot, Yami corrected himself, not…well… He turned back to his screen as Motou slid the door back into its frame setting behind him and rested into the wood with fox eyes.

Holy crap _shorts_.

That was about all Yami noticed when he raised his glance carefully under his lashes as he attempted to retain his brittle composure. Who let Motou out in public looking like that? Did this class as indecent exposure? Yami reshuffled the papers, setting down his pen, and decided in that tee, with that sorry excuse for clothing that didn't obscure half of Yugi's thighs, that yes it was delicious incident exposure.

Yugi crossed his ankles and waited. Yami knew he was being lured but he refused to surrender. No, no, no Motou was coming to him today. He was taking this back, flies with honey and aloof glances or something like that, so settling back in his seat Yami met his eyes.

"I'm not happy."

"Peace _is _shitty." Yugi concurred.

"Not what I meant," Yami snorted. "We need to talk."

"Not about feelings." The pilot grimaced as if the word tasted foul cringing back suspiciously.

"Of course not, we don't have any," he chuckled lightly before tightening to stern. "You disobeyed a direct order."

"Which time?" Yugi called for specifics. Yes he did do that a lot admittedly.

"Approximately twenty one days ago I told you to stay in bed."

"Oh damn, I forgot the October _Bedding Protocol_." He sassed.

"That counts as treason now," Yami shrugged arms resting on the cradling plastic of the seat, "now before we move on with administration I think that requires reparations."

Yugi rolled his eyes but didn't even flicker to move unstuck from the door his sneakered toe bouncing as the boy grinned to himself. There was something silly in it, harmless, then Yami noticed the sneakers properly and the room seemed to get hotter. He better not have an age kink he considered darkly because that would be totally inappropriate. _Hot_ and dirty. After all Motou might as well have been in the principal's office. As Yami struggled with an internal civil war between his concubine and headmaster fantasies he propped one elbow on the desk and beckoned open palmed with his first two fingers.

"Hmm?" Yugi lilted unhelpfully.

"Well you can get on your knees there but you won't reach." Yami responded droll.

Motou broke into cackle, actually light of God snorting laughter, and Yami had to bite the inside of his lip not to smile. It was precious. Yugi bent a little at the middle, shaking his head and throwing his hands up, letting them slap limp against his thighs a second later, he came unglued from the door.

"Fair cop," he laughed.

Those wicked shorts were cotton. They rode up impossibly higher when Yugi settled on his knees inducing a minor aneurism. Turned to one side, composed externally and mildly expectant Yami ran his fingers through the boy's hair as he trailed opposing fingers to his fl-

"Your hair's wet." He fisted his fingers tighter teeth meeting.

"Shower," Yugi offered coyly.

Sexy. How was that sexy? How did Motou _know _that was sexy? Now Yami was near he could spot the smattering of clean moisture across the boy's cheeks. He stroked the plush of his cheek, fingers firm, and let his insides bubble. It was a play of binary oppositions. If Motou was clean Yami wanted to make him dirty. Yami intended to do just that then.

"I miss this," Yami confessed rather fascinated with the sweetheart face as he fondled his zipper. "We need to stop taking vacations from this. It becomes _distracting_ for me."

Yugi smirked, looked to laugh at him but paused when with a few stroking fingers Yami untucked his length. He allowed himself another leisurely paddling under the boy's watchful eyes and hardened smugly.

"Distracting for you too I think," he teased.

Lips parted, hands on his knees, as Yugi riled to come back with something undoubtedly witty Yami supposed but cutting him short he exploited the opportunity to rub the beaded tip against the pilot's plush lips. Yugi almost fell back in an unconscious recoil but tremulous stilled as Yami dragged the warm head along the parted purse of his mouth. He glanced up, Yami smirked, game, set and match. Score one Emperor Sennen. _Finally_.

"Open," he ordered, fingers lacing in thick distantly damp locks to direct the pilot to his charge.

Yugi hesitated but fell into reliable permissiveness after a second. Yami was beginning to sense that, for all the pilot's bravado, he had some power in this private tug of war. That was dangerously appealing. To have Yugi Motou as his solely was one thing. Greedy as he was Yami found it a brazen matter of pride to claim the younger for himself but to be able to dominate the boy? Now that was just _wicked_. Devious example of humanity he was Yami quite considered he needed to exploit that.

Yami took a tight breath at the molten heat, fingers flexing against Yugi's scalp, fighting to retain his control as he took one of the pilot's wrists in his free hand and nudged it over the shaft of his length.

With a little direction Yugi's fingers fumbled over him, caressing, as the smaller dragged his tongue along the quickly beading slit, just the head resting in the boy's mouth. Yami hissed, fisting his grip, eyes lids fusing shut. Yugi's fingers ran along him, squeezing, tongue twirling round the tip… _Christ_. Yami tugged him gently and palm sliding back towards the Emperor's groin Yugi rose a little on his hips to take another inch between those slick lips.

"_Suck,_" Yami ordered. To keep his voice level he found he could only manage small words.

Yugi did, pursing his lips, and Yami's head fell back with an almost pained sound.

"Oh good boy…" He moaned in encouragement.

Yugi drew back, breathed heavily, fingers rolling over the head to slicken to caress of his fingers with pre-cum before he diligently accepted Yami's member back between those willing lips. The progress of his palm smoothed Yami found his free hand digging nails into the seat.

Yugi moved carefully with Yami's hand coiled razor tight against his scalp in a way that must've been painful. His fingers fumbled, stroking, over what he couldn't take sucking what he could with a gentle tongue running, tracing.

He drew back a fraction, Yami's hand wouldn't let him remove himself any further, and sunk back to create an artificial thrust round the Emperor's aching cock.

"_Yes,_" Yami hissed.

After three weeks apart and given how long it had been since Yami Sennen had received anywhere near a proper blow job he was never going to last long under the pilot's delicate, burning, ministrations to his cock.

Slow wet tongue, steady suction, fingers rubbing against his curls and fumbling round his shaft.

"Hhn…" He inhaled, heels twisting in the carpet. "_Ahh_…"

Yugi hiccupped quietly, nails digging into his thigh, as Yami's tight, firm, fingers held him in place while he came. Both hands finding purchase on the Emperor's thighs, trapped, Yami glanced down, panting, a moment later to watch the boy forced to sallow with his lids squeezed shut. It wasn't a pleasant taste, that was clear from Yugi's scrunched up nose, but moaning Yami was frankly unable to restrain himself when the sensation, the expression, of Yugi gulping milked the last of his seed down the boy's throat.

He slackened, fingers loosened, but refused to let the boy pull back immediately.

"Clean it," he prompted.

Yugi's palms flexed against his thighs but there was no resistance. Instead Yami was permitted his excuse to feel the boy's tongue gliding along his softening arousal a moment longer before the heat faded back down.

That done he let Yugi slump back onto his butt spluttering lightly.

"Here now," Yami cooed in satisfaction sinking his arms round the pilot to assist him off his knees and into the Emperor's lap. "There."

"Well?" Yugi pestered lazily in challenge, as if nothing had happened, chin raised like some prized courtesan from where he sat straight and hence fractionally taller than his patron superior. "Did you actually want to talk about something or was I just lured here again?"

"Oh no," he snorted, "two things need settling before the coronation."

"_Well?_" He repeated mutinous brat.

"Well to start," Yami grumbled bouncing his knee to jolt the boy in his lap, "I want you there beside me during the occasion."

"The coronation?" Yugi clarified with a peculiar frown.

"Yes," he repeated, "on camera."

"Why?" The pilot turned up his nose.

"You're an important and popular national figure. Having your support publically reinforces my sovereignty." Yami sighed. "It sends the wrong message if you're deliberately absent. People will notice."

"For the whole thing?" Yugi supposed.

"Yes." He grunted impatiently. "Don't be so difficult. It's a day."

"Do I have to dress up?" The pilot was cringing miserably now, almost recoiling off his thighs.

"_Yes,_" Yami snapped, arm round his waist hefting the boy in closer to him from where he'd drawn back to. "A lack of effort in your presentation shows dissent. The press might read too far into it like they do everything- Oh stop making that face. Peacocking yourself for a day won't damage you Yugi."

"_Argh_," Yugi grumbled under his breath, tilting his eyes and his chin away unhelpfully.

The boy sighed sullenly but Yami rather knew that he had struck a weak chord in the pilot by using his name. He suspected Yugi liked to hear it, the subtle signs of intimacy, and even if the proud creature would never consent to saying so Yami was beginning to master his chemistry. He hoped however that Yugi wouldn't follow suit in realizing how Yami was beginning to use the child as a crutch, his safety blanket, out of strange fondness. He would feel better with Yugi Motou next to him at the coronation. He had an excuse to put Yugi beside him given their relation and Yugi's status just like he would have an excuse to put Mahado beside him when he promoted the General to take his previous position as Minister for Defence. For his own ease Yami might even formulate one for Mana.

As for Heba… Heba would be there, watching, supervising, eternally secret and forever out of view. Heba was a weapon much the same way Yugi was, with his own brand of tenderness, and Heba would be there come hell or high water whether Yami invited him or not. Heba would be quite triumphant he expected. He'd waited such a long time for Yami to reclaim his birth right after all it wouldn't suit if the companion couldn't garner a chance to swell up with smug pleasure.

Moving right along.

"Second," the Emperor progressed to the stubborn whelp, "we'll move you into the palace with me."

"Why?" Yugi grunted mildly more intrigued as well as miraculously affronted all at once, folding his arms across his chest.

"Mahado will be replacing me as de-facto head of the Military," Yami elaborated, "between that and other arrangements it's shortly going to become progressively more difficult for me to see you." _Catch _was probably a better word. "Moving you into the palace settles the problem."

"So I'm what? _Maitresse en titre _now?"

"Technically the title would be _paramour_ or _cicisbeo_." He corrected before shrugging bluntly. "But, yes; if you want to be." Who was going to stop Yami if they were careful?

Yugi faltered at that slackening mildly in his offended posture to blink at Yami in a brief, perplexed, second before turning away abruptly with a glimmer of colour. Well that touched at something Yami suspected. Good, it should've if he was perfectly honest. It had better. The affair of this past year was something Yami was beginning to realize may yet last _years_ more given how unfaltering his desire for the brat had become.

"Yugi," he warned taking the boy's chin in hand to tilt him back, bringing them nose to nose. "I don't enjoy feeling pushed aside. This is as close as I come to pursuing, chasing, so unless you'd like me to stop then-"

"Alright! _Alright!_" Motou flustered as if he couldn't take any more of the sentence for some embarrassment, breaking out of Yami's hold to divert his expression from view again while he grumbled. "Jesus, fine."

"What do you know you can be reasonable," Yami chuckled, closing his arms round the smaller to sequester him into his chest. "I'll have to repay you I suspect?"

"_Humph_," Yugi grunted still unable to properly make eye contact.

Was the boy upon the cusp of blushing Yami wondered in intrigue? The concept sent a tingle twisting behind his navel which he rather enjoyed. He wanted Motou unfolded for him, he would admit he lusted to make Yugi wanton for him, and to make the crass petite monster fluster with butterflies was a rare pleasure he was hungry for more of. Hmm, if he could Yami was sure he'd very much enjoy it.

He didn't understand the specifics of it. He wouldn't call this love in good conscience but he did want the boy and he wanted just as much to be special in Yugi's considerations. To find the pilot possibly as affected by Yami as the Emperor was by him was silently delightful.

"You'll like it," Yami swore, "I'll see to it."

Yugi tucked a wayward strand of hair behind his own ear and kept himself to one side struggling against whatever tide had riled up inside him. Call Yami a predator but given a few more days he would find a way to stir a proper blush out of the harlot. _His _harlot now technically… yes, that sounded perfect, he'd have to keep it that way.

"Let me kiss you?" He murmured fingers cupping the furthest cheek in his palm.

"I taste like cum." Yugi muttered but came round till the tip of his nose butted against Yami's, the pilot's fingers flexing on his shoulders.

"Good." Yami decided firmly, finger lacing through damp locks to pull their lips together.

* * *

(Track- "What Goes Around" Justin Timberlake)

"Big," Yugi mumbled huffing at strand of hair as he slapped both palms onto his hips.

"They're traditionally the Empress's quarters."

"So I shouldn't get too comfortable?" The pilot sassed softly eyes wavering over the walls.

"I think it's safe to say you'll be here for a while," Yami confided.

"What do I call for room service?"

"Twelve." He retorted.

Yugi laughed fingers slipping down his thighs as he ambled towards the windows. Yami wasn't sure why he'd bothered to demonstrate the new accommodations to Motou but he suspected it was something to do with desire and curiosity mingling. Despite their original deal so to speak Yami found that he spoke to the boy now. Not much mind you but amiably. Yami had conditioned once that if he could find a reasonable human being with Yugi Motou's smart mouth he would be satisfied after all. Yami knew now that in the dark of night with the right kisses Yugi Motou was sweet, soft and gentle clinging to him, though he wondered if the pilot would've preferred to keep that secret.

Yugi had power of his own though, Yami was learning that, and the boy seemed to underestimate how dearly Yami found himself wanting him close. Yugi Motou had always been a handsome specimen, tempting, and he still was if not more so but Yami could remember originally forcing the brat into his desk with an abject loathing months ago. He took Motou because he couldn't help it when given permission. Yet he had done so in the beginning rejecting Motou, his personality, as something unfriendly and humiliating to interact with. They fucked, they disliked each other, and they worked. Now… now Yami wanted to kiss him. Now Yami knew that Yugi Motou could laugh. He was still a sharp creature but Yami felt more familiar with _Yugi_ as an entity rather than _Motou_.

Thinking about it he longed in a foreign way for a smile he hadn't seen yet from the child. Yugi smiled with cheek yes, Yugi had fallen apart contentedly in his arms twice now but Yami had yet to see the boy smile properly. A proper, soothed, smile that came from joy seemed impossible to discover but then Yami supposed he had yet to return the favour himself. He didn't smile.

Knees up onto the window seat Yugi explored the view as if he was some small, contemptuous, tabby cat.

Yami let him be to glance at the plaster ribbons etched in gold leaf on the ceiling through the procession of sprawling well furnished rooms which composed the Empress's chambers. They were probably too good for Yugi but Yami was loathe to give them to some foul courtier. Rather the pilot he was partial too. Yami hadn't entered these rooms, had no reason to, for decades. Gozaburo's wife, sickly thing, had inhabited them only very briefly after their wedding before moving closer to the medical wing and the garden. Before then, after the death of Yami's grandfather, his mother and father had supposedly resided here waiting to assume the throne. Apparently during his first years of life Yami had resided in a nursery just down the hall.

Yes, better Yugi was cloistered close and safe here. It was the intersection of two ridiculous thoughts that prompted Yami the conclusion. Somehow if these were essentially his parent's rooms he felt someone he liked should be stationed within them. As for keeping Yugi '_safe_' he wasn't sure where the word came from. He wanted the boy close, he was coming to terms with that attachment which was growing upon him like a fungus, but Yugi Motou was more than capable of protecting himself. Yami had been, he admitted, becoming flourishingly…possessive over the creature lately however. Not to mention that twice now, in secret, Yami had seen the boy very much small and vulnerable in need of sequestering. It must've been instinct then or greed.

"Yugi," he beckoned, he needed to return to work. "One more thing."

The pilot clamoured off the window seat to trot back to his extended hand where his elbow sat by his hip. Yami took the boy's elbow in his fingers and pulled him towards the starkly empty walk in wardrobe.

"Oh look, plenty of room for my ball gowns," Yugi snorted tartly.

"Here," Yami cut stern but languid as he reached the back mirror set in wood panelling which covered the wall. "This opens."

He demonstrated and suddenly interested Yugi stuck his head through the revealed doorway to the secret passage therein. The hall was long and empty, windowed along one side till it turned sharply several meters ahead.

"It goes to the Emperor's chambers." Yami explained, "old custom to preserve the appearance of chastity and all that. If you take that we don't have to concern ourselves with maids or security."

"Sweet," Yugi snorted. "That's so cliché."

"It's tradition that's how clichés are born." He dismissed adding carefully; "don't break anything."

"Yeah right," the pilot cackled softly, "should've thought about that before you put me in the antique store."

"_Don't break anything_." Yami repeated.

Yugi sighed puffing at his fringe.

* * *

(Track- "Wherever you Are" in The Search for Christopher Robin)

The Empress's was definitely the most comfortable bed Yugi had ever slept in but he almost shot the maid when they tried to rouse him at four am. Yugi did not wake till five am, that was the rule, and _anyone_ letting themselves into his quarters was fair game antique shop or not. So after the averted hostage situation, attempted murder and breakfast Yugi still considered recoiling as a miserable, dazed, lump under the perfect white sheets.

"Why am I conscious?" He growled blinking irritably at the sunlight trying to twinkle through the windows hazily as the staff threw the curtains open. It was winter. The sun wasn't going to win the war over the distant horizon for at least another two hours. So unless the war had conveniently resumed it was too early for this shit.

"The coronation Sir," a little fat one reminded him. "We're to help your unit prepare for the procession."

"My unit…?" He scanned his memory.

Ah, yeah, good. At least Sennen had dragged Jou, Otogi and Honda into this ridiculous festering mess. They'd be shouted out of their barracks no doubt and stuffed half naked into cars while Yugi sat there yawning in the palace. It was such a pleasant thought Yugi had to impart a lazy, smug, smirk towards the window. They wouldn't waste time feeding his tagalongs with anything significant during the commute to the palace either. Jou would be crying. Yeah, Yugi was feeling better by the second as he stoked that fire of imagery. Not to mention he had the location on his side. It wasn't as if the day was going to proceed without Sennen down the hall who was probably still sleeping. Though, actually, knowing proper Sennen he'd probably roused _himself_ at two am.

Why had he consented to attend this? Yugi could still blow him off, he considered, he wasn't exactly known the world over for his steadfast reliability and level headed demeanour was he? He scratched weakly behind his ear. Argh, too much effort for socializing he wouldn't enjoy. Sure Gozaburo had dragged him along to trite of the same stripe but Gozaburo wasn't exactly known for being conscious before noon so he and Yugi had possessed something of a blissful compromise about the scheduling of events.

What would Sennen do if he skipped out? He mulled it over. The bed was a sprawling nest of fluffy temptation waiting like a hulking toad just across the room. It might as well have had its own siren's song.

No time however the pestering house staff were smart enough to shuffle him off to the shower.

"But Sir-"

"Fuck no. Capital F." Yugi dismissed locking the suite door behind him, gun still holstered in the hemline of his night pants. No way did he require any assistance in making sure he was spotless for the cameras.

Lord you'd think Sennen was getting married. Would Yugi be expected to attend a royal wedding? Kind of inappropriate if you're fucking the groom… He slipped under the shower spray and decided that, just to make the bitches from wardrobe panic, he was going to take his sweet time under the suds. He was a brat. He got paid for it. Why change now when it required sympathizing with other human beings? Yugi was quite comfortable with the decision he was head of the Chain of Being.

* * *

(Track- repeat)

He'd never admit it, especially not with Jou hopping on one foot in what was now his sitting room as half a dozen lackeys tried to dress the sloppy moron, but Yugi softened a little in his resolve to be an ass all day when they told him he was wearing purple.

Now that would infuriate the Princes in the tower watching in banishment for the very same reason Yugi found it… charming? Pleasing? Wrong words but the point was Sennen wanted him in the royal hues. You could bet your socks Sennen would be in the traditional white and gold but purple was sacred and exclusive to the royal family. Not that Yugi gave a stuff about being part of their messed up group of denizens but there was a thought in that… he kind of liked…

He kind of liked the whole thing secretly. Not the having to attend the coronation part, that was incessantly boring and troublesome, but the connotations of the costume and where he'd spent his last three nights. Yugi kind of… Sennen wanted him here, had placed him aside as special and that wasn't anything new which was perhaps why Yugi felt so moronic in himself. Yugi had been the gem, favourite, youngest in the line for a very long time. Gozaburo fancied violent prodigies but this was a different shade. Yugi did that, played that game, for himself. He needed Gozaburo's approval to survive.

He'd never confess to it, not under threat of and execution of torture, but he… he didn't _love _Sennen. He was _fairly_ sure. Yugi had never loved anything or anyone but himself, blood and mud. He didn't think himself exceptionally capable or Sennen particularly endearing but the Emperor to be held him right. It was a weak, small, thought and anything with those three descriptors was confidential as far as Yugi was concerned. It was true though. He wanted Sennen to hold him more than he wanted to fuck and occasionally with even more intensity than he longed to be on the field killing.

Sennen did have a tenderness Gozaburo lacked. Yugi preferred Sennen's favour. He'd never been fond of Gozaburo honestly. Frankly he hated_, loathed_, humanity with a dispassionate distain which kept him apart from people or compassion but when Yami Sennen pulled Yugi into his arms, ran his fingers through his hair and kissed the bridge of his nose…

Yugi crumbled, feeling the sheen of the fabric under his fingers.

Yugi would go today to make Sennen pleased. He'd go because the Emperor had asked, ordered really, even if Yugi knew he could blow him off. He hated that. He hated that he'd come back to this room, this bed, and feel this same tiny glimmering glow of weakness about the Emperor wanting Yugi under his roof and guard.

If he was lucky then Sennen wouldn't know every secret of the old Reich and Yugi could finally stop worrying over words like _'replace', 're-evaluate', 'reclaim'_ and_ 'terminate'_. Until then there'd never be proper trust between them anyway. Until then Yugi would have to like the man without ever relying on him for a long term future.

* * *

(Track- "Aha!" Imogen Heap)

They actually streamed the coronation to Bohemia Live. Curtsey maybe or it was a flat out attempt to intimidate with a radiant demonstration of Imperial wealth, support and patriotism. They watched the recording in a staff room. Atem tried not to be cynical while the base clustered up together in scattered rooms to watch the news feed. He didn't really think anyone on site was really interested in the costume or the elaborate parading because he certainly wasn't. As magnificent as he looked on screen Atem wasn't at all jealous of or particularly fascinated in Yugi Motou today.

The interest here was Yami Sennen. Atem was aching to really see him, to hear him speak, after knowing for so long that this was the man and the voice that had commanded his enemies and almost cost him his life. The Republic now depended upon the newest Emperor of Cyprus. Whatever Yami Sennen decided would determine their future. Peace or war, survival or tyranny, all hinged on whether the intimidating man rising onto the podium for his address to the masses would advocate union or schism.

Sennen was intimidating when he spoke. It wasn't as flawlessly wild as when Yugi Motou's voice came over the radio, which Atem was thankful for, but Yami Sennen was just as dangerous and it showed. He was clipped, elegant but to the bone and the crux of everything. As he spoke he weaved imagery, cunning, and Atem could hear the fire and the brimstone passion there about reclaiming lost glories and inheritances.

Ryou recrossed his legs, morose, beside him and Atem rued that Sennen didn't exactly sound like a pacifist.

The camera panned, Atem noticed Yugi Motou behind the Emperor looking uncharacteristically stunning and then-_Wha? _

He frowned, anxious in a way he couldn't place and had to voice it:

"What's that?" Atem twitched finger jutting over the screen.

"What?" Anzu blinked from a desk chair.

"That's Sennen princess." Mai snorted round her coffee.

"Not that special," he sighed, "no _there_. What's wrong with their cameras? It's all fuzzy by his shoulder."

"No it's not."

"Yeah it is!" He argued. This was important somehow to him. "Look at the background! Over his left you can see the church super clear, high def, but on his right it's all blurry."

"So unless half of him is a hundred meters further forward," Ryou snorted, "their cameras must be shit. Someone'll get fired for that."

"Not unless all their cameras are broken," Rebecca intervened suddenly. "Seriously, watch the replay when they switch angles-" a breath, "there! See! Same thing but different camera, over his right shoulder the camera quality fails."

"That's weird," Atem mumbled. "Is it just round Sennen?"

"Rewind it," Rebecca ordered, "we'll check. Ryou?"

"Yeah," he sighed, grasping the remote.

"I can't believe you lot," Mai grunted, "bloody conspiracy theorists."

"No but seriously," Atem argued, "the hell does that to a camera?"

"New weapon?" Ryou offered darkly in his vague, calm, manner. "If it's round Sennen it might be some kind of security measure. Protection. Who knows, maybe they finally mastered holographic cloaking or something?"

"If they did it's shitty."

"It's just round Sennen," Rebecca emphasized a second later, "just by his right side. That is weird…something must be screwing with the signal…"

"Why do we care?" Mai shook her head impatiently. "Kids don't you have something important you should be building? Bloody geniuses…"

"Yeah, I know, totally impractical and easily distracted." Rebecca dismissed. "That is… shit that's going to bug me all night. The hell _is that?"_

"How big are the proportions?" Ryou offered. "The field of distortion isn't very wide."

"Nah," she agreed, nodding. "You're right. It's tiny actually. Bet no one else's noticed yet. Better thank funding for Horakhty's sharp eyes."

"Or_ me_." Mai offered. "You know, the one who cleans Dumbo up when he come home bleeding from playing rough with Motou."

"Thank you," Atem remarked on reflex as she shoved him lightly.

"If it's a mech or a weapon it's small." Ryou concluded. "Should we tell someone?"

"Tell them Cyprus has shitty cameras?" Mai chuckled. "They'll love that, great use of our time, they'll be happy to know we directed ourselves appropriately."

"That is so weird." Atem shrugged weakly. "Heh, maybe it's a ghost?"

"Hah _ha," _Rebecca drawled. "Real scientific there genius."

"Hey!" He chuckled. "No one pays me to be smart. That's your job. I just go shot things."

It bothered Atem.

* * *

1 _maitresse en titre_ = official mistress usually to the King

2 _paramour = _gender nonspecific lover

3 _cicisbeo =_ male mistress usually however it's the male mistress of a rich woman

Next Time: Yugi encounters a couple of simple requests he can't meet, Yami teaches him a new word, Heba pushes things in the '_right_' direction, and Atem gets an unexpected armed visitor.


	13. Chapter 13

So planned business trip, got good university marks, got the Christmas tree up… I'm having a damn good week. So have some smut!

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

(Track- Sinbad Soundtrack 11 "Sirens")

Heba hadn't left. Yami had woken in the morn to find him staring out the Emperor's windows onto the grand streets, where the parade would commence, and he returned to those same rooms in the evening, after a night of revelry, with Heba close behind. Heba was there when he began stripping in the bedroom, seated with his back to Yami in the lounge before the empty fire the other chose to watch with some vigour. Heba's forearm lulled on the arm of the seat, wrist limp, and he may as well have been a corpse animated. It happened on rare occasion that his passionate, expressive, lifelike quality became bizarrely artificial and empty, lacking. Yami imagined perhaps the other was tired for he certainly was but he found it hard to ever picture Heba without an electric presence. Understatedly elegant Heba could sit for hours, perfectly still, in complete silence that mind buzzing ready always to spring back without lag.

From behind like this the Emperor could mistake Heba for his Knight, an unnerving idea, and throwing off the ceremonial garb with years of practice Yami resolved to ignore his silent vigil before the ashes.

This morning he had been commander of the nation. Tonight he was, officially, anointed Emperor of Cyprus. It was eerie truthfully when Yami slipped off the heavy mantle of gold to settle in the velvet lined box on the dresser but deep inside his inner child, resentful and angry, was appeased. Had he never allowed himself to realize how much he longed for this rightful place? Fear of Gozaburo must've enabled him to trick himself into thinking he had no desire for his father's crown he now ran his fingers idly over.

Left in his trousers, exhausted from the church, the procession, the address, the court masque and twelve courses of elaborate dining Yami felt a dire urge to collapse onto the mattress. Yet he turned, saw Heba still by the fire, the Mephistophelesto his Faust, and couldn't bear to attempt sleep with the other lulled watchfully as some sleeping dragon across the same room.

"I'm going." He announced drifting towards the wardrobe.

"Don't fuck him too hard," Heba replied soft, even and vague without ever glancing round to face the Emperor.

* * *

(Track- Narnia Soundtrack "Narnia Lullaby")

Yugi swore under his breath, steel tipped toes hitting the leg of the coffee table stubbornly as he tugged at the laces of the damn costume. He'd left his ridiculous rookies down in the ballroom getting pampered and plastered. How Jou managed to dance with every pretty noble girl who asked after stuffing his face with _turducken_ was beyond the realm of fabrication.

Yugi stumbled back, hitting the edge of the bed, swore viciously and with the small of his back against the bed post he slid down to slap his arse on the floor. Huffing, he changed tangent, switching instead to unlace the much too tight boots to push them, steel tips and all, down his calves. The tightness of the costume and the general air from the shower had given him the illusion of feeling ready for combat this morning but after sweating all day the seams were laced strongly enough to give him and the soles of his silently groaning feet a headache.

He heard the obscured door in the wardrobe come apart, he just didn't bother paying it any attention, too busy muttering atrocities.

"What on earth are you doing?" Sennen pressed amusedly as he padded across the carpet.

Yugi threw his arms down, toes now bare, and glared in the general direction of _up_ from where he sat.

"Are you going to help me or not?" He challenged.

The Emperor, for a moment, appeared affronted but the stern visage collapsed into something of a chuckling snort as he gestured, sighing, over the Knight.

"Get up then," Sennen instructed.

Pouting stubbornly Yugi did, shoulders slumped, but unable to keep a sour expression the Emperor appeared quite calm with himself as he approached. Patient Sennen took his shoulders and turned him about on his toes. Authoritative fingers strayed up to the lacing along Yugi's spine to tug strongly enough to rock pilot where he stood.

"You looked stunning today."

Yugi grunted. He had a smart line for that but he didn't trust himself to get it out. Snidely he didn't think he was going to be judged on his appearance at the event but at a deeper level he'd take the compliment.

Sennen's fingers made brisk work parting the folds down his back till he could untie the knot fastened at the small of Yugi's back and release almost all the tension in the torso portion. Yugi breathed easier at once, murmuring, chin falling forward. The Emperor managed to remove one layer of the ceremonial garb refocusing immediately on a series of buckles and laces Yugi couldn't comprehend the order of.

"This is why I don't wear this stuff," Yugi sighed, "takes three people to get one dressed."

Sennen gave a another snorting chuckle hands coming round to work along Yugi's torso bringing the Emperor's mouth close to the shell of his ear as Yugi's back brushed his front. Another layer came free, the one with the lowest level of trail, and pulling it open Yami exposed his navel, fingers gliding up to shrug the opened collar off Yugi's shoulders. As the sleeves rolled down, Yugi's elbows exposed, the man leant mouth peppering soft between his bare shoulder blades. Yugi twitched, Sennen's fingers tightened round his upper arms, the room felt heavy. Another kiss planted against the curve of his shoulder, another up the tendon, Yugi tipped his chin back, _hmm_…

"Are you happy?" Sennen murmured by the curve of his neck.

"What?" Yugi startled from his daze. "Are you being smart?"

"What? _No._" The Emperor grumbled at his defensiveness the powerful grip on his naked elbows used to twirl the Knight round. "I'm asking you a question."

Yugi nearly coloured, averting his eyes like the typical delinquent. Sennen groaned and seemed to want to shake him. Yugi would never admit to being thrown, to being shy, to _don't ask me that please, it doesn't matter, just let me be tough._

"Answer me," he whispered in prompting, all at once very close.

Yugi couldn't help it. Better judgement and foolishness clashed up inside him just like his will for victory and his survival instinct argued on the battle field. He met Sennen's gaze, knew he might tremble if he held it but found himself incapable of looking away.

There were a lot of things Yugi kept locked up inside his mental closet, buried, repressed under layers and layers of atrophy. He was steeled not to engage. He didn't like dealing with people in any lingering way. It was infectious to his sense of self. He would rather be indomitable and unreachable than manhandled but Sennen… those eyes, those lips, those hands…

"Yeah…" He mumbled weakly a painfully tenuous moment later. He was. _Almost.  
_

_Do you know about The Underground?_ Yugi couldn't stop asking himself that. It was the road block to everything. Everything hinged on that detail which decided Yugi's trust but it was a conversation the pilot would never start himself. Either way he'd made an answer phony half-truth or not.

The Emperor's grip softened but his gaze deepened.

"Then you should smile more," he teased absently guiding Yugi's wrists out of the sleeves at last, "and you should use my name. I'll be putty in your hands."

"Why?" Yugi shot back immediately. "I grin like an idiot at you all the time."

"Must you argue with everything?" Sennen counteracted stern.

"Yes!" He retorted.

"That's not a proper smile," the Emperor insisted in explanation, "that's when you mock me, laugh at me, I want to see you genuinely happy just once."

_But I'm never happy!_ Yugi complained to himself loudly, pursing his lips to sew them shut, his fringe tapping the sides of his cheeks. It wasn't so true anymore but Atem Horakhty was right in supposing that Yugi wasn't as pleased with himself as he would've like to portray. Sennen saw it too? That was frightening. _I'm always frightened_. He swallowed quietly eyes straying over Sennen's disconnected expression as the Emperor busied himself with his belt. _I just want to hide in you_, Yugi decided, _I don't want to put on a show for you too. I'm exhausted. Can't I just be sad for once?_

Teeth dug into the inside of his lip with a new sensation. It wasn't really guilt perse but it drove Yugi's eyes down to his feet in shame. He couldn't do that could he? He could do everything anyone had ever asked of him except this. He could win Gozaburo's war, he could! He just couldn't be _genuinely_ happy for Yami Sennen. _I want that one_, he mused miserable and childish. He wanted to achieve this Emperor's desires more than the last for certain. He'd fake it, he would, but he wasn't good at it. Part of him burned to his own surprise as Yugi found he wanted to be happy for Sennen, he wanted do to as he was asked, he just…

Being small, being lonely, carefully raised as he was Yugi had been transformed, built, from the ground up to be this. He was more a weapon than a human being. He was a wild force to be reckoned with but the little human inside him was still dolefully childish and unfulfilled, immature, unsatisfied… No one had really taught him how to function like that. He didn't want them to.

"You don't smile either." Yugi challenged sullen and tensely furious at his own defeat.

"I…" Sennen paused, couldn't argue. "I know… I'll try. Would you like that?"

"Huh?" Yugi blinked. People weren't supposed to roll over. They were supposed to bicker so he could divert. "Really…?"

"If you say my name," the Emperor bargained with the tiniest smirk. "I say yours don't I _Yugi?_"

He shivered. _Fuck_. Sennen chuckled thick and syrupy nose to nose.

"It's weird." He answered. Sennen was just supposed to give him his own way damn it. He shouldn't have had to conform to some standard.

"Why?" The Emperor snorted. "I've fucked you how many times?"

"Lost count," he shrugged, "but that's different. That's just sex."

"_Oh?_" A warm, bare, arm slipped round his waist and drew Yugi in inch to inch till they were inseparable. The pilot's hands fumbled over the man's naked chest, finding his shoulders, locked in a stare Yugi tried to find the strength to exit. "Those two nights you spent with me were _just sex?_"

Yugi should've backed down but he was he suicidally crazy like that so he nodded though he lacked conviction. Sennen snorted snidely, holding them together while his free hand unbuckled the knight. Yugi watched and holding his gaze the Emperor didn't hesitate to slip one finger, then another, between his own lips nonchalantly before guiding them back down between skin and fabric to slide across Yugi's arse. Shit. Yugi's teeth dug harder into his own lip, Sennen smirked, kneaded, squeezed, testing and parting his cheeks ran the tip of his index finger over the boy's entrance. Oh no…

"No,_ stop_-" Yugi protested pitifully.

"_Shh,_" he hissed the pad of his fingers rubbing, prying, at the opening as he secured Yugi in place. He hushed him once more soothing gentler: "stop squirming."

Weak in the knees Yugi grasped his shoulders uncertainly and despite himself found his lids fluttering shut as, stringing a tiny moan from him, the Emperor teased with a greater pressure without ever really breeching.

"Now then," he challenged, "tell me again how it was just sex?"

"_This,_" Yugi emphasised insistently, "just cause you can get me hot doesn't mean- _Nhh_…oh…"

His lips parted, face slumped forward, fingers curled on the Emperor's upper arms for purchase as pressing skilfully Sennen parted him the tip of his index finger sinking in just an inch or so. Between his legs, under the Emperor's fingers, Yugi felt uncomfortably slick suddenly. Sennen withdrew, fingers rubbing slow steady circles, and _so_ slow applied just a little pressure to enter him again.

"_Hmn_…" He hiccupped weakly into Sennen's clavicle.

"No please," the Emperor snorted in amusement, "go on. You were saying?"

He thrust in, drew back and the second digit joined the first til the tips of both were pressing into Yugi's passage.

"_Ooh_…"

"What was that smart ass?"

"_Ah!_" Yugi hiccupped, sound back flipping in his throat as Sennen thrust the curled fingers to the knuckle prying him open.

"I'm sorry that didn't sound like English." Back, nearly out, then _all_ the way back in.

"_Oh!_ _Stop!"_ He pleaded, _shitohshit_, arms scrambling up round the Emperor's shoulders. "Yami, please, Yami…"

"There we go!" He praised tartly, Yugi could feel him grinning against his cheek. "What was that?"

"Yami please Yami Yami…" He tumbled into nonsense face buried in the elder's neck, utterly breathless, "Oh… Yami Yami…"

"Better," the Emperor purred, fingers curling. "I like that so much better."

He stilled. Yugi panted, still tense and still filled, nestling his face along the tendons of the elder's neck. Se- _Yami_ held him in one arm, hoisted up, peppering kisses along his brow.

"I want you Yugi," he whispered, softer suddenly and weak already the pilot gave a pained moan. "I need you tonight. I really do."

"Yeah…" he sighed dazedly in consent, those slick digits twitching gently inside him.

"How about I make love to you this time?"

"_Yeah_," Yugi purred, gone and hiding under his chin no longer embarrassed but crumbled to that funny weak place the Emperor stole off with him to.

* * *

(Track- Faun "Arcadia")

"_Yami_…"

"Oh," he groaned, he could hear that a million times. "Good boy."

"Nh!" Yugi grunted tartly.

"_Yugi_," he covered, purring apologetically into the pilot's ear till the sweet body eased again. "My Yugi…"

"Ah…" There. The boy soothed, sighing cheek to cheek with him.

Yami's hand's roamed. It was the perfect position. The boy gripped the head of the bed on his knees, leaning into his arms as, behind him on his own knees, Yami pressed his chest into the child's warm back bringing his chin over Yugi's shoulder till they were nuzzled. He thrust languidly, just rolling his hips, palms trailing smoothly of their own accord over the grooves of the boy's hips, over his navel, down between perfect soft thighs…

Yugi pushed, arched, back into his thrust tight, slimy and liquid mettle intense round Yami's cock as their hips fused.

Sweet sweet thing…

Yami's hands fell tight to grasp the bones of his defined hips on reflex adding to the pressure. He rolled back, kissing the bend of the boy's lips at the side of his mouth, thrusting _in_ nice and steady till he bottomed out inside the pilot. Yugi moaned low, thin, consistent, by his lips, arching.

They bobbed gentle, tender, into each other. Yugi unfolded to meet his touch, Yami pushed on to provide him with so much more, sweet precious… The Emperor kissed his cheek hard, heat roving between them as he began to realize they were sheened with sweat.

"Yami…" Soft, perfect, the Emperor kissed his cheek bone sweeter as he ground into the pilot. "Hnn_ Yami_…"

He panted, could feel Yugi's frantic tiny gasps under his palm as he dragged it along the knight's navel, and hard, incredibly stiff, Yami couldn't will himself to take the boy with greater urgency. It was too delicious slow. He could feel everything, ever flex round his length, every shudder in the shoulders, every bead of sweat along the boy's back that warmed his belly when Yugi leant back into his warmth.

"You are so wondrous," he whispered, kissing the boy's ear as with a shiver Yugi brought one fumbling hand back to twist and card through Yami's hair. "That's it."

"Hn,harder," Yugi grunted.

Hips in hand Yami complied on his knees firm but consistent in the jerk of his pelvis. Yugi moaned through a hiss, fingers twisting in his hair, purred, gave in…

"My boy," Yami preened into him.

"_Nga-ah!_" The pilot fell forward, toes twisting in the sheets, folding his arms over the mattress as he buried his nose between them. Yami saw his nails dig, white knuckled, into the bed and taking the boy's hips securely he lengthened his stride in the beating rhythm.

"Yes," he murmured.

The grip didn't feel sufficient, Yami's arm snaked round Yugi's waist, hefted him closer with his full strength as their hips motioned with a more pronounced emphasis. Yugi lost air, Yami heard the staccato of his whimpers increase and catching it the Emperor was moved to a deeper contentment purring low at the back of his throat. The smaller's mouth had peeled open into the surface of the bed, panting and whispering, and Yami could nearly hear the wires stretching towards a critical failure. One of them was going to break.

"Yami Yami Yami…" He moaned desperately.

"O-_ah_," he grunted painfully, what man living could resist that chanting mantra prayer?

* * *

(Track- Faun "Pearl")

When they hit the mattress after the crescendo, sweat soaked and in Yugi's case _filled_ to Yami's intimate satisfaction, the Emperor found it hard to breath. The boy rolled into him, flushed, lips full and panting and drawn by that Yami held the knight to his side. Squeezing him Yami pulled up the bedding left dishevelled round them. The fire crackled, the windows creaked, but more importantly his boy lay a weakly curled hand absently on Yami's clavicle and tried to steady his breathing in the Emperor's arms.

Yami's own heart pounded a little longer, throbbing in his chest like the heat still lingering between his thighs as his fingers carded up the boy's side, lips pressed to his fringe so he could bury his nose between the strands of damp hair. It must've been close to dawn at this rate, the day would start late tomorrow but regardless Yami would be exhausted. Still he found it surprisingly irrelevant.

"Yugi," he whispered for no real purpose into the din of silence rising up round them, just to feel the warm body languidly round him contract in response.

"Yami," the pilot mumbled back with returning uncertainty, resistance, now the endorphins had finished their work loosening his tongue but still Yami had to grin. Once he unlocked the box Yugi was a torrent repeating those syllables. It would be easier next time even if Motou would try and make himself unreasonable tomorrow. "You staying?"

Yugi was drifting, nearly gone in the exhaustion, but nonetheless Yami was surprised.

"Of course," he whispered in promise, lips plucking the younger's forehead. If nothing else Yugi Motou made him feel young and wild. Protective, horribly possessive and greedy too till the knight effectively drew up the best and the worst of all things Sennen.

* * *

(Track- Assyrian Church Funeral Hymn "Hal Libba Marya")

Ten minutes. Yami scanned the wall clock for the fiftieth time and hid in his palms. By the window Heba waited, scanning the horizon, utterly at ease with himself in that languid way of his. Heba could move with an effortless, predatory, grace. Heba was resolved to every decision but Yami wasn't so unchanging. Was this right? Was he biting off more than he could chew? Two days after the coronation however the Republic was tenuous and Dartz in Bohemia would expect some answer.

"I don't know about this…" he confessed.

"You've already deployed Motou. Think how pleased he was."

"Yugi would recover."

"You'd distract him certainly," Heba snorted.

"We're talking about a war." Yami murmured.

"No, we're talking politics and showmanship." The plum-eyed witch corrected shifting his gaze smoothly to the Emperor. "The Kaiba twins are still alive in the tower. If your reign hits a difficulty you can be assured a resistance will rise up. You have to be beloved. Rulers do that by creating enemies."

"I know _that_," Yami snapped, "I'm not an idiot."

"I never said you were Sweetling," Heba crooned disdainfully, "you're just acting like one. Cyprus needs a rival. The war is supremely popular, Yugi Motou is popular, you'll lose more followers than you'd gain by ending it."

"But…" He struggled to sound sincere as he formulated the words on his tongue. "Men will die."

"Oh men die every day," the smaller hissed, "you don't care. Don't lie to me. You thrash Bohemia. You push the President into a corner so tight he is forced to accept whatever terms of armistice you force upon him. You secure a prosperous economic future for the next two decades. You become the Emperor who_ won_by the end of next year. They're already on the ropes."

Yami swallowed it carefully.

"You can't let someone like Atem Horakhty exist either," Heba reminded, "he's too stirring. He needs to die. You have to crush enemy morale."

His interior solidified slowly, tangibly, under those whispers.

"You're right."

Heba grinned viciously.

* * *

(Track- Faun "The Market Song")

Atem rested both elbows loosely on his thighs as he regarded the new EY-3 in the glimmering late night fluorescents. Sighing he rather hoped he wouldn't have to use it. His grandfather poor, fading, old thing was starting to ask when Atem was coming home to the farm. There'd be daffodils on the hill behind the cottage soon. If Atem closed his eyes he could almost smell sunflower seeds rolled in sand. The coast line, the farm fields, the desert…his favourite places in the world seemed much more regenerating than wasting away in a border base waiting to see what would break with the dawn.

Ryou had fallen asleep at his desk amongst the mechanics of some new project. Atem would've carried him to bed but the engineer would've stirred too quickly and given him that awkward stare of disapproval. Anzu had returned to the capital to tend to the President. General Ishtar, fierce as she was, now without Siege to monitor might be tasked to supervise their funny little unit the Hawkins family included. Atem was fond of all of them, even crass Mai, so the occasion to meet them was perhaps worth a little tribulation. A war might be worth it for all the good friends.

He felt so stagnant stuck here with nowhere to go. He glowed in a war he didn't want but without it he felt a tad uneasy and purpose lacking…

Leaning back into his palms he roamed over the deep crimson of the EY-3 Mark II and felt like apologizing to the first model he'd let Motou destroy. He'd spent so long in the training simulator the past few days, trying to drag his bootstraps up, that he barely knew himself or his bed. Clean clothes? What were those? He snorted to himself.

Something changed in the atmosphere.

A breath, a strange discomfort, the hair on the back of his neck stood up eerily…

He frowned, blinked-

Cold, solid, steel pressed into the small of his scalp, the top of his spine where his brain stem was terribly vulnerable, and Atem froze metaphorically caught with his pants down.

A slow inhale, his lips parted, he tried to fathom a sentence-

"_Don't move._"

Motou.

Oh fuck…

Atem's heart palpitated _thump-thump-thump_ in his chest.

Motou's mouth skirted towards his ear and Atem only then felt the body heat of the Imperial curled in behind him, painfully close, gun still cocked firm. Motou snorted softly, exhaling along Atem's earlobe, his stomach curled, and quietly the Knight resumed.

"You're an idiot." He shamed nonchalantly. "You have any idea how many times I could've blow your brains out in the last twenty minutes? I had so many angles to repaint the walls in here I should take up interior design."

"Then why didn't you?" Atem murmured. No, bad, shut up mouth!

"Heh," Motou grinned. "I want to take you down properly. If I can't put on a show I want a good fight at least."

Well, what did you know, Yugi Motou had his own kind of honour. Atem respected that minus the whole murdering him part.

"This is against international law," he warned evenly, "we're in a cease fire."

"We won't be when they find you."

"_What?_" He whispered, eyes flickering.

"Emperor Sennen's calling it off at dawn."

Shit, knew it, Atem swore silently.

Motou snorted, pulling the steel tip back from Atem's bare neck to re-holster it with a clunking clip into his belt.

The Imperial's response suit made a tiny sound as he rose and turning up and out of his seat Atem leapt likewise to face him. He was bloodlust, Atem could see it humming in Motou's eyes synchronized with his whole limber form as the Knight slipped his hands over his hips. Atem noticed, briefly, that the response suit was special issue black and grey probably made for covert missions.

Atem's fingers flexed on instinct to curl to fists but he knew he wasn't ready. It was early, he was tired and sore from training hard. He wasn't in top shape. Logically he was screwed. Luckily he was Atem Horakhty the master of good fortune and determination so he wasn't counting himself out just yet.

* * *

(Track- Miku "Cinderella and Romeo" Eng Sub)

_Ouch_…_Oh fuck_…

Atem groaned, palm massaging the small of his back, as he kept Motou carefully pressed on his stomach handcuffing the Imperial's hands behind his back. He might be unconscious but Atem wasn't willing to take any chances. Let it never be said that Yugi Motou fought like his size suggested. Runt was like a badger in a sack. Someone that small wasn't supposed to pack such a big punch. Atem could barely see out his left eye, his crotch was numb and burning at the _same time_.

Okay, okay, he was going to move. _Ow! _Come on legs! Atem turned the petite Imperial onto his back, resting on one knee as he tried his best to lift the temporarily harmless human nuke into his arms. Atem prompted himself, he had to go warn the president before Sennen sent out the troops and his bloody bleeding heart wasn't going to let him leave Motou here in case the kid had a concussion. For a sociopath Atem was having a very difficult time hating the kid especially when he was unconscious. Ethics, morality, and sympathy all tumbled up in him and fish hooked him into flashbacks of that one night they'd shared a cave in the rainforest at Arch Tree. He still remembered Motou getting glassy eyed when Atem tried to call him out on his upbringing. There was a lot of pain in madness his Grandpa liked to argue.

Staggering he managed to get to his feet, bouncing the softly groaning Imperial in his hold, hoping Motou was as queasy as Atem was. He felt like his temple was about to split open at the laceration after Motou had slammed his skull into the leg of the EY-3. Kid moved so damn fast, Atem was sure his clavicle and neck were purple from the boy digging his thumbs into his wind pipe.

How was Atem still standing again? Skill aside it came down to three things: luck, size and experience. Not to say he was a better fighter than Motou, he sure as hell wasn't but he knew some hand to hand. The point was that Atem knew the hangar, knew this base, with an intimacy Yugi Motou didn't. It had given him an advantage. Likewise his size made it a fraction easier to overpower the imperial if he could just get his hands on him (which had _not_ been easy). It was like pinning down a squirrel who kicked like an angry old goat. Finally Atem was just fucking lucky, so lucky, because while he wanted to disarm Motou wasn't restrained to such things. When the Imperial had intent to kill it was no holds barred. Still, Atem would probably take this over a mech fight with the boy. Yugi Motou got this voice when he was behind a giant laser than made Atem want to wet his pants.

"_Hnn_…" the travel sized Imperial groaned groggily, "Y-_n_-ami…"

_Yami?_ Atem blinked, as in Yami Sennen Emperor of Cyprus 'Yami'? Off put, suddenly awkward, he coughed to himself and commenced dragging his feet to the elevator.

"No," he muttered gently, "sorry Firecracker." _Just your friendly arch nemesis actually but you nominated me for that I didn't volunteer_.

Motou's head lulled into his beaten chest and then rolled back over the cradle of his arm to throw the boy's skull back. Hopefully Atem hadn't hit him too hard.

_Oh yes, sympathize away with the crazy teacup who just beat the shit out of you._ His mind prompted intercepting the thought. _No really, do go on!_ Was it bad his mental mother sounded halfway between Rebecca, Mai and Ryou?

"M-_uck_…" Motou dazed.

Atem smiled, cringed finding it hurt and shook his head. He was an idiot. Motou was cute when he was incarcerated, weird thought admittedly, but…yeah no, he didn't have a good explanation but Atem knew what he meant! It made sense in his head somehow! Kid was too young to be doing this, too screwed up, and Atem had this bizarre big brother complex that was going to get him a permanent bed in ICU.

"Horakhty!" Mai hollered hoarsely from her desk.

Atem startled, eyes wavering off Motou's dull expression.

"The hell happened to you?"

_Yugi Motou broke in, challenged me to a duel and proceeded to beat the shit out of me? _Atem struggled for better wording and glancing over her befuddled expression held Motou out in his arms to present the Imperial to the doctor like a kid with a sick bird he'd found in the yard.

"Can you check he doesn't have a concussion?" He was never good at sounding smart in private, he sounded tired to himself, tired and dopey.

"_Him?_" Mai spluttered. "What about you? You look like you took a spa treatment under a bulldozer!"

"Just a little one," Atem chuckled through the painful chip in his lip, gesturing over Motou. "Please? Before he wakes up would be good. I didn't have anything to tie his legs with." _He kicks super hard_.

"I…_argh,_" she hissed, mug hitting the top of the desk brutishly. "Put him on the gurney and sit your ass down. If he doesn't have one I'll give him one and then we're cleaning you up."

"No time," Atem argued offhandedly, darting past her at the instruction of her gesticulating hand to lower Motou tenderly onto the nearest cot. "I have to go. I need to contact the President somehow. Keep an eye out for him okay? I'll come back for him."

"For an execution I hope!"

"He keeps you in business," the Republican joked with a weak grin, gathering all the cheek he could muster drifting already back to the door with a new sense of urgency. "Thanks Mai!"

"Fucking…" she grumbled heels clacking on the linoleum as she followed after him to throw herself in the doorway calling at his shoulders. "Call Ishtar! She'll get you the President!"

"_Thanks Mai!_" He shouted back picking up his feet, fighting the ache that had lightened ever so slightly without his load.

"Idiot," she hissed.

Atem didn't want to be anywhere near the med bay when Yugi Motou and Mai Valentine had the _'conversation'_ of the century unless he had a blast screen.

* * *

1 Mephistopheles ; is the devil who makes a deal with Faust in Goethe's "The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus".  
2 Turducken; is an old royal court kind of delicacy. It's where you stuff a peasant in a chicken and then stuff that in a turkey or some such. You can use all different combinations of birds (Henry VIII would use peacocks and swans even)  
3 Yep, we're starting a few blindshipping centric chapters~ Prepare for subtext from Atem Horakhty the hopeless fool!

IMPORTANT HINT SONGS:

Heba- "Poor Unfortunate Souls (reprise)" Little Mermaid Broadway Demo deleted track 16 + Miku "Game of Life" English Sub  
Yami/Yugi- "King of Anything" Sam Tsui version + "Heartbreak Down" Pink  
Atem/Yugi- "True Love" Pink  
(If you want one of two special _secret_ hint songs you have to ask for them in a review and I'll send you one at random~ I might do this again if you guys enjoy it.)

**Next Time;** Atem discovers potential in disaster, Yami realizes his has been captured by the enemy, and Yugi dreams or…? What the heck's _that?_ What do you mean by _Prometheus?_


	14. Chapter 14

Okay so; I'm on a business trip and busy for most of tomorrow so you guys get an early update. Don't say I don't love you~

* * *

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

(Track- Lupe Fiasco "Fighters")

Yami felt lighter than he expected to find himself. Heba stood by the window, watching over him yet out of view of the camera feed as he waited for his call to connect. Perhaps it shouldn't have been so but it was becoming easier to admit Heba's wisdom, easier to endure his almost incessant company, and just as Yugi was a crutch to his forgotten tenderness Heba seemed fast becoming a bolster to his wickedness in authority.

Their eyes met for a moment, Mahado, now his new Minister for Defence, had disappeared to deal with some emergency and left alone Heba gave that tiny tight lipped and secret grin of approval he held about him sometimes. Whenever he was proud of his partnered accomplice little Heba the Kingmaker gave that grin as if to say Yami was particularly magnificent today. He shouldn't have given a stuff for Heba's approval just as he shouldn't have given a stuff for Yugi's happiness but he found he did. Heba and Yugi were perhaps the most loyal above all others and the most gifted.

All things got easier. Making difficult decision, cunning decisions, got easier. Yami was accustomed to doing nasty things but the adjustment to such a large scale without the excuse of Gozaburo must've startled him. Heba however would reign him in relentlessly the ruthless miser.

"_Call Connecting_."

'_Long live the King_,' Heba mouthed by the window conspiratorially as the AI chirped from the laptop and Yami realized a second too late he was grinning under the odd current of strength Heba provided via osmosis.

"Emperor Sennen," his devoted and eagerly waiting listener greeted.

"President Dartz," Yami inclined his head back slowly. "You're well I trust?"

"I hope to be better."

"Well," Yami would dash that, "unfortunately I'm afraid you and I are in for a…difficult discussion."

The words '_surrender_' were plastered on Heba's smirking lips though they both knew full well Dartz would never submit to such a condition. Not yet anyway.

"I expect-"

Something happened, a ruckus that drew Dartz's eye from the screen. Unintelligible shouting was obscured by the President's hand fluttering instinctively over the mouthpiece picking up sound for the call. Yami frowned, Heba's eyes watched over his own shoulder and they waited like a joined organism watching prey. Dartz said something, seemed to realize Yami was still watching with an elegant calm and flustered came back.

"I am dreadfully sorry your Majesty, if you would just bear with me a moment," he apologized.

"Please," Yami threw his hand up flippantly, wasn't going to save the blue coats.

Dartz jumped from his desk, clearly displeased, before Yami was put on hold. Now that was rude. Yami didn't consider it was appropriate to put your previously hostile enemy Emperor on call waiting during negotiations. Heba was not at all amused, Yami could just sense it, and between them they rolled their eyes. Perfectly synchronized their gestures were either merging or Heba was learning Yami's.

A moment passed. Yami didn't think enough of the Republic to be particularly concerned. It occurred to him however that perhaps President Dartz was just now being informed of Atem Horakhty's secret assassination. It would be before schedule regrettably but not by much so Yami supposed he could let it slip. He had told Yugi to sneak in, do it, hide the body and give them a little surprise when they noticed their war hero was missing. Nonetheless Yugi had obviously stuffed him somewhere smart enough that they were just noticing now. What a good boy.

Two things happened simultaneously then as Heba watched, a hawk, by the window: Mahado threw open the door of his new office mouth already parted and President Dartz reappeared on screen. Yami raised his palm curtly, two fingers extended and floundering Mahado silenced himself instead closing the door tight behind him.

"Emperor Sennen, my apologies," Dartz returned fresh and newly aloof. "I'm afraid I just had an emergency transmission. Perhaps it's best if I put you on the line as well. Do you mind?"

Yami frowned, brow twitching and without waiting for an answer Dartz tapped his keyboard effectively splitting Yami's view screen as the call suddenly became a three way enterprise.

"Go ahead," Dartz beckoned curtly to the newest member of their conversation.

He was a handsome young man or he _would've_ been if his face hadn't endured a scrape with a mincer. Yami recognized him, from millions of photos accrued on his desk, but it didn't immediately click until Atem Horakhty met his gaze with a young man's spluttering intensity.

"E-Emperor Sennen," Atem coughed developing the backbone to become harsh in that low soldier way Yami recollected from his own youth. "I would like to formally notify you that Yugi Motou has been taken into Bohemian custody as a POW this morning after an attempt against my life."

Yami wavered but not in his features. Beneath the surface however a chord snapped up in rebellion. Heba's whole body shrunk closer, eyes wild, hazing him with a glare Yami could feel burning at the side of his temple. Their thoughts harmonized. This was why Mahado had come; Motou's unit must've snuck back without him in a panic. Part of Yami was muttering nonsense internally in the inhale after Atem Horakhty spoke and Heba's eyes peeled at his skin hissing: _don't you dare fuck this up_. All approval had vanished in a tenuous warning from Yami's tiny nubile secret.

"You don't say," Yami scoffed. So this was the young man Yugi hated so much. "How convenient then, Mister Horakhty I think you've just managed to summarise my intentions perfectly to the President."

Horakhty blinked, seemed taken aback, nearly intimidated but then _glared_. Petulant, arrogant, ballsy, wretched little corn mud fucker-

"Sennen this is completely unethical!" Dartz rallied. "How dare you!-"

"All's fair in love and war." Yami shrugged simply.

"We have a formal cease fire activ!-"

"_Had_, as of now," the Emperor cut again. "Honestly Mister President surely you understand that a cease fire is not at all the same as a binding peace treaty."

"Well I think we'll retain that cease fire until the military execution of Mister Motou." Dartz threatened.

Oh no, Yami felt his gaze harden and slacken to a grin. No. No inbred barn raised pair of Republicans was going to threaten him or his weather his be kin, property, lover or weapon. Heba was still burning beside him, like a flaming wraith looming at Yami's side but he only served to reinforce Yami's own fire. He should've been in view of the camera by a slither but didn't show up on screen.

"I'll give you five hours to prepare your troops as a matter of political courtesy." Yami answered simply. It wouldn't matter his army was bigger, better, prepped and waiting hungrily and had been for _days_. The Republicans would be in a scramble and strategically cluster fucked either way. "Unless you're prepared to formally surrender. As for Yugi Motou I would suggest you begin preparing exchange conditions. I'm willing to offer a large sum for his return and if I were you I'd take advantage of that so you can buy Mister Horakhty here some working equipment."

He waved flippantly towards the eavesdropping pilot. Atem appeared caught between colouring and shouting at Yami's lazy distain. The Emperor adamantly disliked the punk already just by the airs of his features.

"I doubt any sum you could offer would be sufficient given the loss of life and damage accrued by Yugi Motou!" Dartz was trying to get strong now but aside from his soap box Yami was viciously convinced that the man had no solid ground to stand on.

"Mister President," Yami wavered calm, low and cold, "you can bargain now or you can bargain later but I can assure you of two things: one, that any harm which might befall Mister Motou will be on your head and considering his intense national popularity here I would judge carefully, and two, I promise you within a week you will be paying _me _to take him back."

His boy was insufferable. Yami had no doubt captive or not Yugi would find a way to make hell. Yami certainly would. He was going to slap the brat off his feet for getting himself captured. Then lock him in a tower for the next ten years. Stupid, _stupid_, boy he fumed protectively. When Yami got his hands on Yugi- No, when Yami got his hand on silly insolent Atem Horakhty…He couldn't decide really which one of them he wanted to throttle first. Captured_… really_ Yugi?

* * *

(Track- Pink "Try")

Atem didn't get a chance to hit the med bay to clean his wounds. General Ishtar had the all clear from the President to prep their border base for front line combat and only five hours to do it in. Atem knew that lurking outside the walls somewhere not too far off were prepared Imperial units and amongst them, he was sure, Motou's unit were waiting with the electric pulse beam lasers which had taken Siege. They were a well oiled base, General Ishtar ran a tight ship, but they had five hours to prep for a serious situation. They didn't have anything to combat the pulse lasers and if they lost the base not only would the border be pushed back they'd lose their only leverage- Yugi Motou.

He'd been running since about dawn. He'd had no sleep. None of it mattered and voice hoarse he was still shouting in the hangar on aching legs within moments of being annexed from the control room. He had orders, some restored faith from General Ishtar and a delicate handful of time to make count.

"Sink or swim is right now boys," technicians and soldiers were scrambling up the gangways half out of their pyjamas, "anyone whose got a mech to prep is pepping it!"

Ryou hit his back, thrusting a combat suit at him, and Atem threw off his top. Leaving to get change meant leaving supervision of the hangar and there was no time for that. General Ishtar was going to be assaulting HQ to see if they could get back up but even if she managed it, which was unlikely, they'd still be hours away when the rest of the Knights had the all clear to storm them. The capital was going to be in a panic. The entire border was going to be frantic for supplies, munitions and extra units to reinforce their thinly spread line.

"Sword prepped?" Atem checked curtly.

"Swords up, Hawkins are checking the final systems," Ryou assured. "Won't be fully functional for an hour."

"Go help the rest of the techies," he urged, unbuckling his pants. "Someone needs to organize them."

"You?"

"I'll be in the EY-3 but I got to try and organize who we have into units," Atem cringed pulling up the combat suit sloppily in his boxers. Shame? What was shame? "How many mechs we got?"

"Fifteen on base, four tanks, mostly guns and jeeps."

"_Shit_," Atem grumbled into his shoulder. Fifteen wasn't bad given they had the base for cover to barricade if need be but fifteen mechs was not enough to deal with what they'd end up mouth to mouth with he suspected. A hundred and sixty hadn't been enough to hold the Knights out of Siege. His mind whirled. "We're going to have to be smart."

Maybe Rebecca or General Ishtar? Atem wasn't much for strategy but they had an equation here. Organizing the troops was one thing trying to fend off super weapons was another. Rebecca then he decided hefting the suit up his arms to fondle the zipper cold against the small of his back.

"You got a radio?" He asked and Ryou nodded. "Tell the Hawkins if they've got any strategy in mind for stopping those lasers they better tell me in the next three hours."

* * *

(Track- Portal 2 "You Monster" OR "Prometheus")

Antiseptic, heavy cleaners, and bad linen were the unifying scents between hospitals and laboratories. Yugi hated both intensely. More than once he had woken in one to think the was in the other. _Hatehatehate_. He was swimming inside himself, adrift, and he knew even if he wasn't totally conscious that they'd drugged him. Whoever '_they_' were didn't matter in specific terms because anyone who wasn't Yugi himself was basically an enemy anyway. The world was a net of hostile fractions and changing loyalties. There wasn't safety.

He fought it. He'd been drugged, medicated, and had enough chemical shit pumped through his veins in his life to make morphine look docile. He struggled for better consciousness, more awareness, but whoever had been dolling out the needles this time had good sense to dope him up strong. He started to lose the tightly gripped edge of alertness, started to fall, but then…

He hit something old inside himself, stirred dust off a shelf, and for a second thought he was awake before he realized, terribly, that he was dreaming.

Half images, decomposed colours, trafficking against each other with mashed sounds that all blurred and slurred…

"_Then we go offline._" She was a conqueror.

"_Offline? But the entire system- how can we-_" The concept was unheard of.

"_You better find a way then!_" You didn't question her. Not when she boomed all alight with the surging electrics of heaven. She was _Paraxia-Pura_ equal to_ Pharaoh_. She and he ruled Central, ruled the Church, ruled the whole world. "_I'm not losing the entire international union to plague!_"

Yugi didn't…

He didn't remember. It all assaulted the back of him in fragments. Everything he kept buried, everything that had died, every old lost memory drifting in the cyberspace wasteland of his subconscious. Everything before he was eight years old was just white noise like this. Senseless.

"_Raise the fucking shield!_" She never swore. She was purity, composure and power.

"_Fourth firewall broken!_"

"_Switch to back ups!_"

"_I can't! It's rewriting the whole mainframe!_"

"_Left Block has visual contact! It's here!"  
_

"_Deploy Units A-Z! Switch all secondary units to finishing the evacuation!"  
_

"_Unit B lost!"_

_"Unit Q- Unit K!- Un- J! L!" _They were losing them faster than they could track._  
_

Panic, bedlam, the screens started contorting through static. Yugi felt himself hefted higher up onto a hip, squeezed too tight, pressed into a flat chest. He could see her.

"_How long till contact with the Holy Quarter?!"  
_

"_I can't track it on Sat! We're losing whole towers!"_

"_Switch to radar then!" _She screeched. "_Where is it!?"_

"_Block D has contact! It's heading to the evacuation ports!"_

"_All units amass! Protect the civilians!"_

"_Sat down!"  
"Sonar down!"  
_"_Radio down!"_

She was losing. Yugi was too small to contemplate the idea. She didn't lose. It was like gravity. It was just the truth of the universe. His whole safe, clustered, sense of self fractured at the idea. Nothing was safe if she could lose. She was the centre of the whole universe.

"_Keep coding! Switch frequencies! Set relays to repeat and scramble every five seconds! Hold the mainframe! We can't lose the system! I'm not going blind in this operation!" _

"_Activating!"_

_"It's outpacing us! Ma'am it's not working!"_

They were scared.

"_Do it again!"_

"_I can't! I'm locked out!"_

They were terrified.

The sky was literally falling.

Yugi could hear it screeching outside the base.

She paled, the woman who held his universe together, and she was going to lose.

The screen flared, sizzled, they had no control over the systems any more. The soldiers had no commander. Everyone was blind. Everyone was dying.

-_Prometheus was punished for giving the gift of knowledge to man. He was cast into the Bowels of the earth and pecked by birds- _

It filled the main screen, the control centre, and Yugi sensed somehow that was a message from the source of all their trouble. It was mocking them. The last _Paraxia-Pura_ looked glassy, shattered, defeated.

For the first time in his short life Yugi remembered vaguely knowing he was about to die.

* * *

(Track- Pink "The King is dead but the Queen is alive")

Atem felt the warmth of his suit, the hug of his restraints, and took a deep breath in the morning air. The countdown on his right HD screen told him they had twelve minutes till the cease fire was officially up so, until then, he was outside the concrete reinforced wall of the base with a ragged group of fifteen staring down Motou's three Knights across the worn, sandy, field. He knew only about half of his unit was running on a good night's sleep, rather than pure adrenaline, including himself.

There were only three of them. It should've been an assured victory, sure, but they had electric pulse lasers like Motou. After Siege an intrinsic terror under the pressures of those lights had been burnt into the forces of Bohemia. Bad enough the troops had woken to a sudden return to war now they had to face the symbols of national terror. Atem had twelve minutes to think of a solution or he might lose a chunk of their border and a vital prisoner.

Think, think , _think_.

_Come on_, his brain whirred. He bounced his feet a little in the grip of the foot rests, fingers curling round the handles to tug him up in place and strained his mind. Motou moved like hell unleashed with those lasers but everything had a weakness. Sure Atem could force them into close contact but he doubted any of the lesser Knights would be ballsy enough to risk their own lives just to blow him up like Yugi Motou would.

He strained his memory for details of the Siege fight that he'd tucked away. They'd all had pulse lasers then. If he could just figure out how it all worked he could combat it. Grandpa Horakhty always said there was a way out of every maze when he wasn't napping on the veranda that was.

Eleven minutes.

"Hey Ryou!" He switched to private frequency A. "Give me some good news?"

"Sorry big guy," the other returned after a moment's fumbling to the handpiece. "Hawkins' say they don't know enough about the lasers. All they can recommend is getting in close and staying out of the way of the beam."

"Yeah," right, "thanks Ryou."

Atem swallowed, regarded the mechs to the right and the left of him, and supposed that honesty might be the best policy. It wasn't a classic commander's strategy but he was either going to panic them now or panic them later so maybe…

"Alright everyone, listen up," he switched to general Republic airspace. "We've got ten minutes before combat begins and I'm warning you now each and every one of those Knights is equipped with one of the same lasers from Siege. HQ doesn't have much to fight back with so if anyone's got any bright ideas now's the time to voice it."

"_Fucking smashing,_" was the first crass rumble to ring out hoarse over the uneasy airwaves. "_How do the fucking things work?_"

"You are?" Atem checked.

"_Akefia Bakura, explosives_," his cam feed came up on screen a second later as well as his radar locale right next door to Atem in the nearest mech. "_Unit: dragged out of bed because I have a weapons testing rig._"

"Heh," okay Atem kind of liked him already, "the units on their shoulders fire a concentrated beam of something like lightning. It's ridiculous hot. Not terribly wide but long reach." This was a bad distance.

"_Well if it's narrow that means aiming,_" the scraggly tosser suggested, huffing at his fringe. _"Moving target's harder to hit, especially if there's charging time?_"

"Good point," Atem breathed, he scanned his memory from repeated conflicts with Yugi. "I think the charge is about forty seconds…?"

"_Well that holds em down._" Akefia grunted.

"_What about close range?_" Another troop piped up spunky but somehow intrinsically cautious from left field.

"Identify?" Atem pestered.

"_Malik Ishtar, ex-Siege security training,_" his cam feed slotted up next to Bakura's. A kid, he had to be, he didn't look any bigger or any older than Yugi Motou.

"Ishtar?" He palled. "The hell are you doing out here? You're a recruit you-"

"_You said all mechs to battle positions!"_ The kid snapped trying to push it along. "_So what about close range?_"

General Ishtar's little brother, just great. He'd snuck out in the haze probably hankering for a revenge shot at the imperials who had taken his home town. General Ishtar really was going to maim Atem when she found out.

"Close range they're going to feel the recoil," Atem sighed, "but it'll destroy both units. So unless they're super suicidal they're unlikely to try it if you get into their face."

"_So we face punch em._" Malik supposed.

"_Can't promise what close range weapons they've got."_ Akefia countered. _"Motou has fucking electrified claws._"

"_How do they fire that thing anyway without the recoil throwing em out of whack?_" Malik groaned. "_It's got to be massive backwards thrust…_"

"_Fucking physics,_" Bakura rasped as if he had a long standing disagreement with the subject.

Wait…

Wait!

It clicked.

Atem scanned his memory, proof read the details, had any of the Knights other than incredible, crazy, Yugi fired those things while moving? His brain cells started to sizzle. They'd all been stationary to blow the wall at Siege then Atem only remembered Yugi firing it off within the walls.

Holy shit _yes_.

"They can't!" Atem realized. It all synced. He blared the volume on his frequency output. "Listen up! Those things have to have some kind of grounding stabilizers which means they can't fire the lasers unless they're stationary! Get up as close as you can and _keep them moving!_"

"_You fucking crazy?_" Someone grumbled. Was that Alister from his old unit? "_You just said we don't know what close range shit they have!_"

"_There's way more of us you fucking pussy._" Bakura backed. "_Just swarm em and don't let em get a chance to breathe. We move in fast they won't even get a chance to charge the first shot. Even if they do the beams narrow. You just have to fucking dodge. Think you can manage ass monkey?_"

Silence.

"_Let's do it!_" Malik piped boisterously.

Well if nothing else Atem had two keen supporters. That might just be enough to win this. Blood surged, adrenaline kept him awake and eyes flickering he found it was four minutes to D-Day.

"Everyone ready?" He checked.

"_Yes Sir._" Came a general chorusing.

"Alright, let's do this," Atem snorted. "On my mark!"

* * *

(Track- Maroon 5 "If I Never See Your Face Again")

Bakura hit off the thrusters without hesitation, Malik raced ahead of all of them, and Atem was in close tight knit succession right beside them. The rest might've lagged in nerves, in fear of death, but apparently not his rag-tag little trio throw together at a moment's notice. Thank Christ for that.

While Atem registered the desperation of the situation he suspected his quick footed and eager companions had different motives. Malik was an Ishtar, the long suffering family which had protected Siege for two generations and had now lost it to these Knights, of course he wanted revenge. Atem doubted Malik had left the walls of the river base city till the fall of Siege. That gave him youth and fire and anger to throw at the imperials. So long as the kid didn't lose his head that determination might help them in the long run. As for Bakura well Atem had no idea why he couldn't shake the keen, darkly tanned, explosives tester from his flank but he didn't much care. Whatever the reason Bakura brought something strong with him, an atmosphere that gave Atem backing. Wait _Bakura _was Ryou's last name too…? No time to think it, question it, the point was Bakura was pushing up the front right next to Atem like he belonged there.

The Knights (who Atem knew from trash talk and shouting matches over the radio in a succession of battles more than from news reports) Katsuya, Ryuji and Hitoro held position without waver. They locked down against the Bohemian charge, prepped their lasers and threw out an opening blast.

Atem's stomach back-flipped but he cleared the beam with a sharp right motion. He'd gotten good at throwing himself round a battlefield and these guys didn't fire with the speed and twist Yugi did. The beam faded, the grass ignited, but Atem caught quick sight of Bakura and Malik in a scan. He still had them he grinned. He had this weird sensation of having backup, real backup, that he-

Ryuji made a motion at him, Atem ducked, moved the mech on its rollers to spin round. It unhooked the other from his stationary position. With Atem moving behind him Ryuji had no choice but to turn and cover his back. Like this he couldn't fire the laser. Atem focused. If he was going to use this strategy he needed to count on the others to keep Katsuya and Hitoro likewise occupied.

Dodge, keep space, but at the same time Atem had to keep coming back at Ryuji to keep him from sitting still long enough to charge.

He glanced to radar. He was trained to be glancing across multiple screens simultaneously. Where was everyone else? The other twelve mechs were coming in now with their balls finally recovered. Valon was coming to Ryuji's other side. Bakura had Hitoro engaged. Malik was coming down brutally at Katsuya in a way that lacked all restraint.

Bakura and Ishtar didn't move like professional pilots. No way. No they moved like rookies with serious balls and gutso. They were moving on instinct, floating on guts, and Atem thought his grin might split his face. Yes. This was exactly what he needed! Pilots like this! Pilots like this had the energy and the personality to face back the carefully cultivated Knights of the Empire!

Atem had this surge of confidence that told him they'd win this, quickly accompanied by a surge of lightning that told him; this was how they could win the war.

Yami Sennen was going to have a hell of a fight on his hands, Atem promised, if the war needed a new line to push back the Imperials and if someone had to show them Bohemia would not roll over than Atem would do it. Peace, safety, a future where people's children didn't die and kids weren't sent off to be built up into beings like Motou. Atem was going to win that future. Call him naïve but he would do it or he'd die trying. This was worth it.

"_Shit!_" Hitoro's voice flared over the general radio.

Atem glanced, immediately regretted it when Ryuji tried to come at him in retaliation, but swerving to the left as Valon started beating up Ryuji's back caught sight of the disturbance.

Bakura was cackling on the frequency.

"_Serves ya right fucker!"_ He hollered at Hitoro as he brought his mech to raw fisticuffs with the Knight, smashing Hitoro's mech into a roll right off its feet across the grass with the back up of three other units. _"Welcome to the Bohemian boonies Imp!_"

Hitoro had a few choice words for that.

Atem laughed. Drew his sword and dug in between the soldiers to go back for Ryuji though his men hardly needed his assistance now. The imperials were surrounded in a swarm. Three well equipped Knights were getting their asses handed to them because Atem had a few wild, crazy, fucking men behind him. No wonder Yugi won so many fights!

The three Imperials were losing ground. Atem could tell as their voices switched off general radio that they were arguing over their own frequency.

"Keep hitting!" Atem urged the troops lest they start fearing the Knights were up to something. "A few more pushes and we can get them on the retreat! Come on guys!"

"_Well you heard him!_" Malik spat, laughing. He was growing on Atem. Kid hadn't taken a step back or pulled off Katsuya's shadow for a second. He'd taken hits. The damage to his unit was clear but Malik Ishtar was still in there.

Ryuji kicked up his thrusters, started hazing them with bullets from the artillery, and pushing started to bolt in the opposite direction from the base. Katsuya broke free immediately after, Hitoro was making the same motion…

"_They're retreating!"_ Bakura hollered.

"Let em go!" Atem laughed tyring to gather his fledgling commander's voice in his own euphoria. "Don't pursue!"

No one needed to die. They just needed to push the Knights back. They just needed to say: you will go no further. They just needed to prove that Bohemia was equal, that they wouldn't take the crap, and then Sennen would negotiate. If the Empire thought they couldn't push them round anymore…

"_Yeah run you fuckers!_" Bakura cackled after them.

"_Don't come back!_" Malik Ishtar added.

Their units were battered. They'd taken hits. Yet they were all alive and Yugi Motou was still sequestered in the med lab.

Holy shit, Atem laughed, he could do this.

Bring it on Emperor Sennen.

* * *

(Track- Timberland "Apologise")

"What do you mean you lost?" Yami spat over the sat phone, fingers slamming against the edge of his desk on reflex.

"I'm sorry Majesty," Otogi Ryuji apologised again, "Horakhty outmanned out us and drove us back. We weren't able to take the base or reclaim Motou."

"_Useless._"

It was about the kindest adjective he could manage and the fasted one that flared to mind. No. This couldn't be the start of his glorious conquest. Yugi wouldn't have lost. Yugi would be laughing on the end of the phone demanding a raise. Yugi _should've_ been.

"Report to the Minister for Defence. You are to hold your position. Do you understand me? We are reclaiming Motou. I'll be damned if I have to negotiate with the rebel president!"

"Yes your Highness." Ryuji rasped, swallowed, and Yami supposed he was the only one brave enough or eloquent enough to be trusted with the duty of informing him of their failure.

"You best start thinking of a way to redeem yourself soldier," Yami warned, "or once this operation is over I will bump all three of your back down to boot kissers."

His thumb dug into the call button and stupidly furious with himself, with Yugi, with the universe Yami lobbed the sat phone hard across the top of the desk to slap and scatter with a _ka-thud_ across the carpet. He didn't see it hit the door. Burying his face in his hands he dug his nails through his hair.

Damn it.

_Damn it_.

"The line is going back." Heba alluded gazing bored out the window over his shoulder. Yami wasn't worth comforting this moment it seemed. Apparently Heba didn't think much of his temper tantrums. "Horakhty bought them time but they lost overall today. The war is in our favour."

"We lost Motou." Yami snapped. "I have to enter into discussions with Dartz! They have a chip to bargain with."

"Oh hardly," Heba scoffed, "they've got your whore. They won't have him long. We'll still win. Don't be pathetic."

Yami's heart twisted sharply, pride hissing up into Heba's dismissive bile. The beat in his chest was mind rattling. He had lost stability. He was furious either that he was, honestly, panicking. Did Heba see that? The Kingmaker, his genius, his shadow was gazing dully at Yami as if the Emperor were some petulant screaming child. There was such abject distain for him in Heba at that second that Yami almost felt ashamed. Heba had been so proud of him this morning, so adoring of him, and weak as he was Yami still so loved to be loved.

"They…" Yami tried to swallow the intensity that made everything into a scream. "They'll kill Motou." He had to hold himself back from saying _Yugi._

"No they won't." Heba assured. "If that's their intention however then what other option do you have except to push on?"

Reclaim or lose.

Yami swallowed, fingers twitching, lost.

"Have Mahado send in forces." Heba ordered nonchalantly. "Surround the base. If Horakhty can't escape to assist the rest of the line Dartz will feel your pressure. Likewise then they can't transport Motou outside the walls without risking losing him to us. Given time Dartz will realize his only option is to get something out of Motou's capture or prepare to lose him anyway."

"Or shot him."

"Heh," the wraith snorted as if it were ridiculous, "he wouldn't dare. It turns the tide against him. Placates his public but lets us vilify him. He becomes the tyrant then."

Yami…

He…

This wasn't…

Heba sighed, rolling his head back, shoulders slumping and in surrender the most unsympathetic and venomous of his brilliant companions graced Yami with a little more intimacy. Delicately Heba laced his arms round Yami's shaking shoulders- shaking…? And sighing rested his cheek against Yami's.

"Sweetling," he whispered, "when have I ever lost?"

"But-"

"Faith," Heba hushed, "have faith in me. Have faith in Motou."

"Yugi," he mumbled. He didn't mean anything with it the word just fell out.

"It gets worse before it gets better." He schooled fingers mingling over Yami's cheek without ever really touching. Just mist.

He didn't care though. Oh he cared for Yami, for Yami's victories, but Heba didn't give a piss in the wind if they reclaimed Yugi. Did Yami? He did. Bitterly. For better or worse he needed Yugi back or his anxiety, his pain, his insecurity… The pressures of the throne were abated half with Heba and half with Yugi. That was his remedy against strain and panic. He would hyperventilate without his support. He would drown. Had Gozaburo been this paranoid in himself? This unsure? Had he worried that the next morning, somehow, the Kaiba brothers or someone of their sort would be out of the tower leading a revolution to have him beheaded from his father's rightful throne?

"I will protect us." Heba promised against the shell of his ear.

Yami leant back toward him, let the smaller body drift him close without resting any weight together, and he almost felt the embrace but not the same way he felt Yugi's solid, wiry, warm arms.

* * *

1 POW- prisoner of war- usually there are understood conditions of taking war prisoners, certain rules, but since Yami's broken the understood rules of a cease fire the Republic might disregard them

Insomniacs enjoy~  
**Next Time:** Atem tries to convince the locals before being left alone with the enemy, Yami makes his own bid for freedom and Yugi gets a glimpse of real human kindness.


	15. Chapter 15

Okay so tomorrow's the staff party for my mother's family business where I and all my siblings work. Hence you get another early update cause tomorrow kiddos, as much as I love you, I'm getting blitzed~

Special:  
1 This chapter is abnormally long.  
2 Also, if you google "youtube repeat" you'll find a website where you can bring up youtube videos and it will replay them in a loop automatically till you pick another video. So if you're using the songs try that for easier reading.

* * *

CHAPTER FIFTEEN  
(Track- Pink "Try")

"General Ishtar," Atem was damn near explosive.

"Horakhty-" she paused in her hiss, hunched over her desk, all paper work and comm. links and vid screens in the chaos. The entire front line was in all out warfare except for their little island sanctuary. "You still look like shit. Why haven't you reported to med yet?"

Oh right he was still all blood, sweat and bruises from his ruff up with Yugi a few hours ago. Shit it felt like _days_. Maybe that was just the exhaustion splashing against his endorphins. Either way time was irrevocably distorted.

"I wanted to talk to you," he could see it, he had a plan finally. Knights of their own, a squad, fire with fire, showing the Emperor they could fight back-

"Is it an emergency?" She ruffed.

Isizhu Ishtar III was a strong woman, a hardy woman, the _best_ woman to protect Siege City and now perhaps an even more qualified Secretary for Defence than Pegasus. She'd held the city, like her father before her, for years until the invasion this year. Hell the Ishtars had _built_ Siege. They were militant all the way to the bone and she was in the ultra-practical vein, no nonsense, which was perhaps why she had no patience for his naivety or his idealism. Still Atem thought that maybe her losing her home was the best thing that could have happened. It had freed the whole sleeping Ishtar family from their outpost to deploy them to the rest of the war. Call him selfish for it but Atem thought of it as fate. They needed Generals like her,_ men_ like her, and he needed a commander like her to mellow out Pegasus' dithering and Dartz' wild determined patriotism.

"No," he confessed, "but I think it'll help in the long run. I wanted to make a suggestion for a task force. I-"

She raised her palm, earpiece dangling down her neck into her blouse, as she pattered her free fingers across the keyboards infecting her desk.

"Horakhty I've got the President hounding me about transporting Motou, the entire front line wants back up and the rest of the sky is falling. Not now."

"I…" he chuckled, slumped his shoulders. "Sorry Ma'am." He saluted.

She sighed.

"You did good today," which was a lot coming from her considering how she blamed his show-boating for bringing the disaster down on Siege. "Put it in the mission report for this morning's battle. I'll read it. I'll consider it. I'll even advocate it if it's any good. You have my word."

Atem needed to take Yugi hostage and stop the three remaining Knights more mornings.

"Thank you Ma'am." He smiled.

"Go to med, have Doctor Kujaku patch you," General Ishtar dismissed slumping into her seat. "Tell her to send me a status report on Motou. I want her recommendations for containment and transport."

"Yes Ma'am!"

* * *

(Track- "Cara Mia- Turret Opera" Portal 2)

"Hey Mai," he was alive, that was the best feeling but trumped by that Atem was giddy with the fact that aside from sending the enemy back with their tails between their legs no one had been injured.

"Oh don't look so happy," Mai grumbled, apparently her morning hadn't been so patriotic. "Sit your ass down."

Atem laughed, all smiles, and threw himself sloppily into a steel framed waiting chair at the end of one of the cots. Mai had a manila folder in one hand, pulling off the lid of her pen with her teeth to scribble her signature across the bottom of page before throwing both over her corner desk.

"How's the firecracker?" He remembered.

"Your what?" She snorted approaching with stethoscopes and whatever other cold implements she always seemed armed with. Atem felt like a voodoo doll under her prodding fingers sometimes.

"The prisoner," he corrected. Why did he had pet names for the guy who was trying to massacre him again? "Motou."

"Unconscious." Mai snapped raggedly. "Not dead unfortunately and you didn't give him a concussion either."

"That isn't very nice." He grinned.

"Yeah well it'd save HQ money on bullets." She murmured. "Hope they execute the bastard."

"Not what I'd be advocating." Atem shrugged. "_Oh!_ _Ow!_" She pressed at the laceration over his good eye. "Careful- _ah_."

"Big baby," she scolded typically, "what's your master plan for Motou then? You want to torture him?"

"No! _Ah!_" He was offended and then reminded how he hated the sting of antiseptic that Mai never warned him about. "I think he should be institutionalized or something. He needs therapy not torture. I think he's gotten plenty of that from his own."

"Leave it to the shrinks." Mai chided flippantly. "You're a bad enough soldier without trying to be a doctor as well apple head."

"Heh," Atem chuckled, least Mai was always honest. "General Ish wants a recommendation from you for contain and trans by the way."

"Working on it," she pressed the little pad of cotton against his brow taping it down, "I've got enough going on with you. Million fucking little things as is…"

"You send him down to the brig with escort already?"

"Nah," Mai brushed. "Take your suit off. Need to see the rest of you. Aching extra bad anywhere but your thick skull?"

"Nah, I'm fine, don't think he broke anything." Atem stood, hands reaching behind his neck to the zipper of the suit. Mai had seen him naked way too many times since their first meeting at the beginning of this year. His career from no one to poster boy had just totally spiralled out of control it felt like sometimes, totally surreal. "Where is he then?"

"Woke up during the fight," Mai waited for him, seemed to contemplate a cigarette. "He started hyperventilating. I had to sedate him. Wouldn't settle." She cocked her chin to a nearby drawn curtain. "Put him in the back strapped."

"Hyperventilating…?" Atem paused, zipper half down. "What happened?"

"Hell if I know." Mai shrugged. "His vitals spiked while he was out. Next thing I know he's conscious thirty minutes after a sed inject and I'm screaming for engineers to help me restrain him. Had to dope him like a bull rhino before he'd konk out again."

Atem started walking.

"Hey! Poster boy!" Mai grumbled.

"Just a sec," he waved her off, slipping behind the curtain.

He heard her wheeze behind him. Mai had long since given up hope on his sanity.

"I'm getting a cig break!" She called dismissively, gathering her jacket up off the back of her desk chair. "Don't break anything for five minutes will ya?"

"Thanks Mai!" He called back.

Her heels clipped across the linoleum, over cheap flooring and down the hall but Atem was more interested in the far cot by the corner window over-looking the central courtyard where they did drills and stocked new munitions.

"Hey, Firecracker…?" He whispered in his approach, not bothering with the back of his suit.

Yugi didn't move. Atem didn't get the whole picture till he'd reached the cot properly and had his hands on the steel frame bracing in the smaller body presumably so he didn't roll out. A wire tangled down a loose linen sheet someone had bothered to throw over the Imperial and it seemed rigged to a heart monitor. By Atem two drip bags were sliding down a tube into the hollow of Motou's elbow. He checked the plastic: saline solution for hydration and something he guess was knock out juice.

"You freak out that bad Teacup?" He whispered.

Yugi's face turned on the pillow, lids twitching, and the tight pout on his lips made Atem uneasy. He glanced down the bed. From what he could see of Motou they'd kept him mostly in the sleeveless black combat suit, the special ops model, but then Atem supposed Yugi wouldn't have given anyone much chance to remove it. Either way his gloves were gone, his belt, the boots…the torso was cut open visibly down his clavicle for the heart monitor…

Cautiously, on some weird instinct, Atem checked his wrist looking for his hand under the sheet.

"Fuck."

Mai had strapped him in alright. Yugi must've gotten up with flair. Atem swallowed. He didn't like gurney restraints and on brief, gentle, inspection he found Yugi had the whole set: wrists, ankles, and waist.

Atem paused but the country boy in him was all hands and paganism. He fumbled, felt intrusive, but against his better judgement lay his palm on Yugi's brow. Not hot. Atem didn't know why he would've been but he worried. God, he had such a bleeding heart.

"Sorry kiddo," he drew is hand back, "I'll come check on you later. You can yell at me. That'll make you feel better eh?"

He smiled weakly, knew Yugi couldn't hear him and felt like a fool.

It didn't help any when he squeezed Yugi's fingers between his.

* * *

(Track- "Forever Together" MOM)

It was a tenuous three days without-

_No Yugi_.

Yami quashed the repeat and checking over his shoulder messaged the hollows under his eyes. It was surprisingly difficult to sleep without the little vixen kicking him.

_Captured_.

He found the intercom and hitting it called for Mana. Another glance round the office found Heba was delightfully absent for the moment. Probably at the laboratories making his little playground come to life.

"Majesty?" Mana had such a bright, generous, smile that the formality of his new position didn't seem to touch her at all.

"Good Morning," Yami gave a little grin, sweet woman. _She's here and you're failing hostage negotiations_. "I wanted to talk to you about a promotion."

"Didn't I already get one?" She laughed.

Yami stood and, eyes darting, beckoned her a little closer as he came round the desk.

"Mana, listen, there are a great deal of classified files I now have access to." He elaborated putting his arm round her shoulder to come in conspiratorially close. "I need someone to look through them all to see if there's anything that requires immediate attention."

"Oh…?" She blinked.

"It's a full-time job for the next few_ months_ at least," Yami sighed, "but given you can read my handwriting I don't see why it should be any more of a pain in the ass than what you already do."

Mana laughed, the sound twinkled, reminded of waves and beaches.

"I'll pay you well for it."

"You already do," she shrugged. She'd do it even if she didn't pay him.

"There's something else though," he pulled her in a little closer, "I'm going to send you some files from the outer laboratories that I want you to check for me. Top priority but _absolutely_ top secret."

"Yeah, sure," Mana shrugged.

"I'm not going to be able to send you the entire batch at once," Yami murmured, "it's going to have to be piece by piece. Take a note of the files and copy anything worth informing me about."

"You're Emperor though," she snorted, "just tell the Labs I'm coming to grab all their files. What are they going to do?"

Yami considered that. It was out of the question. He shook his head.

"I don't want the outer labs to know you have them." He murmured.

"Why…?" Mana frowned and Yami fought the urge to check the empty room a third time.

"I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything. I have… suspicions." He alluded.

He wanted information out of that building that didn't come through Heba. He wanted to see the files undoctored in their chests. He wanted to have a chance to pursue the details of the Z0-RC and EX0D1A without Heba's censorship. He couldn't deny the brat anything, couldn't fault his loyalty but Gozaburo's death was still too convenient especially since it had occurred specifically under Heba's jurisdiction. The politician in him couldn't afford to offend Heba but likewise he refused to be left uninformed about the details. How did anyone induce a mass cardiac arrest without leaving evidence? What or who was he dealing with?

"You think they're fucking round down there?"

"Maybe," Yami avoided. "I want you to check personnel files as well, maintenance reports, camera reels, everything. Any time you see the word _Heba_ I want to know about it."

"He-ba?" She repeated, pad out with another chewed pen to rest the post-its on her thigh as she stood scribbling the word. "What's that?"

"_Who_," he suggested, "and I can't say I'm exactly sure anymore."

Yami wasn't convinced he wanted to be validated in his myriad of suspicions. Heba had told him things, given explanations but they were... Truthfully he didn't want half of what Heba had professed to him to be true but what was better? Heba was a liar, puppeteer, or Heba was exactly who (_what_) he confessed to be? Yami swallowed. With no Yugi to distract him, no warm slender body to comfort him, he needed a diversion from the stress.

Besides, if he waited much longer would he still have the back bone to question Heba's motives? He was fonder of the kingmaker now, more permissive, and they'd found such a harmonious alliance Yami found sometimes he reached for Heba's assistance. Heba was taking his reigns. Heba was always there with a validated opinion. Heba always knew what to do and never hesitated to order it of Yami. Heba was always prepared to make a decision. Yami liked that when he felt hesitant, when he was worried, when Yugi Motou wasn't here in his arms to coddle like a safety blanket.

If Heba needed to be ousted then Yami had best start determining it now before the kingmaker built his own resistance or worse Yami was too partial, too dependent, to him to kick him out. Allowing Yugi to live in the palace, mad as he was, was nowhere near as dangerous as permitting Heba control to roam where he pleased. Heba was a wild, ferocious, animal Yami had let into the enclosure and now found quite useful, reliable, but foreign and alien as Heba was Yami had no idea if he was venomous.

If Heba was telling the truth, about everything, about himself then... No. It wasn't physically or logically possible. It couldn't actually exist. Heba had to be a very skilled magician with waves of the hand and parlour tricks trying to make himself seem fantastical. Yami would rather just know he was lying and restore their equilibrium without all the larger than life nonsense. He could forgive Heba a few lies Yami was trying not to believe.

"Consider it done," Mana nodded curtly, bangles jangling as she stood tall and tan beside him.

"You're an angel." Yami breathed. He could trust Mana and Mahado he was sure.

* * *

(Track- "Cantina" Star Wars)

Atem was not going to let this drop. He'd let Bakura gamble him out of his pants if it worked. Ryou would probably let Akefia take Atem for all he was worth given the gentleness of his shoulders as the engineer rubbed at mugs over the sink. Malik might've been young but with all of them trapped within the walls of the base he had used the down time as an excuse not to unpeel from Atem.

"No but I'm serious, think about it," he appealed again cards in hand. "Our own Knights to fight back against the Imperials."

"We were good out there," Malik grinned.

"Kids," Bakura snorted, twenty-eight and cynical to the core as he puffed at his cigarette under the fire alarm he'd disabled by standing on the table an hour ago. "We lasted twenty minutes out there without facing Motou. That's nothing to brag about."

"We made them _retreat_." Malik insisted.

"I'm not a pilot." Bakura repeated, scoffing. "Boys I don't have any training. I walk round in a testing rig so _he _can shot things at me." He laughed cocking his thumb over his shoulder at Ryou. "I get paid an impressive amount of money to do it."

"I'll find a way to get you more." Atem promised. "I'll give you_ my_ salary if I have to."

"Sides, wouldn't be any more dangerous than you current job," Malik snorted.

"And you'd be helping protect your country."

"This job," Bakura stressed, leaning in. "Helps save my marriage. Little bitch is a lot happier to put up with my shit when he gets frequent excuses to blow me up."

Atem smiled, couldn't help it, trust that to be the reason why they had the same last name. It was tragic nearly to think Cyprus didn't allow as much as even civil unions. He could barely comprehend it himself. Ryou busied himself stacking the cabinets, refusing to drift away for fear Bakura might eventually be convinced to take the front line but too uncomfortable with any conversation of his love life to take a seat in the argument. Atem had never seen Ryou blush, calm Ryou, like the way he did upon Atem's attempts to relocate Bakura after the battle.

"I'll do it anyway." Malik added to Atem conspiratorially. "Seriously."

"Your sister won't like it," Atem was prepared for that though, rookie or not Malik was good. Atem had felt a spark between the three of them, he felt it still, if they unified and he could direct it… They needed Bakura. He finalized the balance.

"Screw it," Malik shrugged, twisting in his seat. "I want to fight properly. Fuckers took Siege, they took my home, I'm a get it fucking back."

"You have fun with that," Bakura snorted nonchalantly to the theatrics, "and Horakhty can have his own little cult of the personality and it'll all be good. I'm going to be here getting rich if you don't mind."

"Won't work without you though," Atem laughed, "see _this _is why I want you. You're like the most pessimistic down to earth out of the three of us. You can anchor and ground."

"That's fucking _depressing_ is what that is."

"Ryou help me," Atem whined, throwing his hands up. "Talk some sense into him."

"I don't know how I get him to show up to the testing bay sober four mornings out of seven," Ryou glanced coolly, "I'm not recommending putting him in no-man's land."

Atem conceded that. It was selfish to ask Ryou to appeal to what surmounted to his only family, as far as Atem knew, to put himself in the line of fire against a terrifying force. After all Atem fought half the time these days so some poor sod didn't have to face Motou instead of him. He sighed but knew at a glance that Malik wasn't going to drop it either maybe if he just left them for a while…

"I'm going to med," he rose, "I'll be back in a few hours okay? Valon probably wants a break."

"You owe me a rematch." Bakura reminded, puffing, determined to strip Atem of all the cash he had on hand and some of his medals.

"You live in med," Malik sighed, "is Mai sweet on you or something?"

"I'm the only one who doesn't get a migraine from keeping watch on Motou," Atem smiled. "He drove Alister mad yesterday."

"Ishtar's mad to keep him in med," Ryou mumbled, "poor monster."

"I don't like it any better than you do," Atem sighed in promise, "but she won't let us move him down to the brig and until the Imperials pull off their troops we're surrounded."

"Soon as they lay off Ishizu's sending him to the Capital," Malik informed, "but that's going to take a bloody long time. Dartz and Sennen have been bickering something ridiculous. Sennen's not laying off an inch. Won't consent to _anything_."

"If I had Motou on my pay roll I'd want him back too," Bakura shrugged.

* * *

(Track- Passion Pit "Where I Come From")

It was a joke really, made Atem ashamed to consider this was their holding procedure but orders were crappy orders anyway. Since Motou's flip out in med General Ishtar was insisting Mai kept the imperial pilot mildly sedated and strapped to a cot in med supervised round the clock by a progression of increasingly disgruntled guards. The sedatives might've kept Motou weak, groggy in the immediate aftermath of the injection, but Hell be damned if the little sprite couldn't pull himself back together and start laying into them shortly after. It was impressive, Atem had to smile at that kind of resolve, Motou must've had the immunities of a bull given how little Morphine seemed to konk him. Kid really could just keep going. It was amazing. Beaut- _Ahem_…

That said Atem couldn't think of anything worse than the Imperials strapping him to a bed and drip feeding him through a vein while they drugged him up and argued about hostage demands with his bosses. If the situation was reversed surely someone would be appalled back home. Motou deserved a little more dignity.

Valon was at the farthest door possible, practically in the hallway, when Atem reached the med bay. Looking nasty, tired and killer irritable. They'd been part of the same unit at the start of the year, when Atem was a nobody with a big silly heart, so he decided maybe it was worth taking pity.

"Hey, how's it going?"

"You going to relieve me?" Valon cut to it.

"I can," Atem shrugged, he would've preferred to really.

"Thank god!" The soldier snapped, pushing off the wall. "He's fucking crazy!"

"Heh, he's wild," geeze Atem almost sounded proud.

Valon grumbled, totally unimpressed and laughing softly Atem let him stalk off. Slipping into med he took his cap from tucked under his arm to slap down on the end of a cot. Mai must've been off writing reports or treating their own given the silence. Wasn't such a bad thing really.

Yugi got pretty quiet when Atem took a seat. Which was often considering how much of the last three days the Republican had spent between these four walls. Yugi would slander his other guards but Atem got a relative cold shoulder. He was still trying, failing actually, to wrangle a proper conversation out of the Cyprus native. The only time Yugi seemed to speak however was to bite with seething, acidic, sarcasm. Still even his spite was pretty endearing to Atem who was beginning to contemplate that, from the magnetism he felt to the smaller, he must've had a Motou related brain tumour. Well maybe that's what Yugi got for hitting him around so much? An arch rival who was pretty fond of him, who wanted to convert him rather than execute him and as Yugi put it yesterday _'obviously has a bad case of battered wife syndrome'_.

Smiling, when Atem sunk into the uncomfortable cradle of the steel chair, by the cot pushed against the outer window, his first instinct against cramping was to fidget upon contact for a more reasonable position. He wasn't a man who felt relaxed with his legs crossed primly mind. He on his arse, knees spread, slumped and nearly giving up to back ache distantly he was about to speak when he took proper notice of Motou.

His face fell, lips weakened, and all at once he was embarrassed by his laziness.

"Hey," he greeted softly. "How are you?"

No smart comment for him today. _Oh please_, he withered inside, _come on kiddo just a little snap?_ Cheek on the pillow, hands cuffed to opposing sides of the cot Motou didn't bother to look at him properly. Atem saw it nearly; that fatal weakness that griped his guts and drove him, even in moments of ruthless violence, too long to comfort the nasty wraith. The Imperial was in his head somewhere, vague, still and quiet in a softly cold way Atem recognized as veiled unhappiness in the form of unresponsive boredom. Atem's mother had… Atem sighed and smiling leant into his elbows folding his arms along the edge of the gurney.

"You know I don't think you've insulted me with sentences starting in P through Z yet," Atem teased. "Want to start there today?"

Yugi scoffed.

Atem swallowed, straightened a little. Shit. _Don't get cabin fever on me now_.

"You sick?" He inquired tentatively. "If Mai's still got you on too many sedatives I can…" he trailed off stupidly. No, that wasn't it. The words dried as useless in his throat. Pursing his brow he rested his chin upon his forearms till they were almost eye to eye. "Hey, Firecracker, what's wrong…?"

Motou's lips twitched, swallowing absently as he wet his tongue.

"How's shit with the Emperor?" Smart irises locked on him.

"Huh?" Atem straightened at the question under the sharpness of that focus. "Oh, uh, not much to report there unfortunately. They're still bickering but…well, no one tells me much about this stuff."

Motou sighed, rolling his nose towards the ceiling, exposing his whole profile to Atem. The pilot wasn't tired, his gaze strayed too hungrily over the ceiling, and grumbling at the back of his throat half words Atem couldn't totally grasp the younger appeared pained.

"What?" He whispered.

"Nothing," he grunted weakly.

"What's wrong…?" Atem tried valiantly a second time. If he could garner an answer he would feel less like straining himself. If it was just that Motou was sad without any new guards to send bursting into tears then Atem could enjoy his afternoon.

"I _hate _sitting still." He whispered a long pause later, eyes straying upwards, his whole expression aching. "I'm feel like…argh."

"What…?" Atem whispered mimicking the frequency.

"All the noise in my head is going to gobble me up." He answered, very petite under his fringe as those fine eyes finally resolved to dart over Atem's face.

He smiled.

"I know what you mean," he professed a sincerely as he could, but he was the enemy. He didn't expect to be believed. "Can I help?"

"Not unless you want to break me out dumbass." Motou grumbled snorting tightly.

Atem wavered, considered the window but would never consent to that much. Still he wasn't heartless. _What happened to you once upon a time?_ It was sticky on his tongue. He had a million questions that none of the interrogators would be interested in knowing about Motou. _Who made the world a horrible place? Who made you sad to be alive? Can you smile?_

"Hey," he grinned, as it occurred to him brilliantly. That'd work. "What about an excursion?"

Carefully, curiously, Yugi's eyes drifted subtly over him.

"It's not much," he shrugged pressing his cheek into his shoulder, "but we've got a simulator."

There was a light which crept back into the restrained creature, something bright and excited that Atem rippled towards conspiratorially. Yugi's teeth ran over his bottom lip worryingly and it occurred to Atem that it must've sounded too good to be true.

"Sound good?" He whispered face sinking towards that brightness. He'd have to be armed and if they were caught he'd probably be in massive trouble but… _Argh_, it just hurt to see someone so passionate all crumbled. It was a complex, Atem was discovering but he preferred Motou comforted.

"Sounds _amazing_," the younger murmured, tiny.

"Hands behind your back to and fro, I'll have my gun," Atem warned gently though he didn't think it was necessary. They both knew he didn't have to do this, he shouldn't do this, but eager Yugi nodded. "Okay, let me get you up."

This was such a bad idea.

Yugi didn't seem akin to a prisoner in any significant way when Atem unbuckled one wrist and groaning the boy shuffled up to sit properly waiting for him to handle the opposing lock. That managed he was surprisingly docile when Atem asked, moronically, for the pilot to pull his hands behind his back. He came close to apologising when he cuffed the Knight and delicately, afraid to linger, Atem helped him balance down from the bed without his arms.

"Good?" He checked and as Motou's bare toes extended to steady on the linoleum, Atem's hands careful over the other's navel palm flat over the smooth expanse, he withdrew his support.

Yugi nodded and taking his elbow in hand Atem began the rather delicate task of sneaking them out. God he was a fool. He should've regretted it but he didn't hate Yugi Motou, not even a decimal place, just what he stood for and what someone had taught him to do and how to live. Given a few months Atem would've loved to fix it somehow. He didn't have that luxury however so mercifully finding the halls empty during the lunch hour he peeked round the corner and palm falling to prod at the small of Yugi's back lead them.

* * *

(Track- Ellie Goulding "Bittersweet")

The sim room was blissfully, starkly, empty and finding a sim vault to activate Atem took his hands off the Imperial for a moment. His subconscious perked with common sense a second later but recovering to reclaim the pilot he noted, amused, that cuffed but relatively free Yugi Motou was focused on little else but bobbing on his feet waiting for Atem to hurry up.

"Here," he offered inviting Yugi to the door of sim vault four, "response drills or mech combat?"

"Response," Yugi murmured, and holding him in the frame by the elbow Atem pattered with the controls.

"What level?"

"Twenty three," the Imperial answered on instinct, they must've had similar tests back home. "I need to warm up."

"Okay, there we go," Atem smiled both hands running down his forearms to the cuffs as he assessed the weight of his handgun in the back of his belt. "I'll be watching. Just buzz me."

"Kay," Yugi's hands came free of the cuffs but he seemed to ignore it in any meaningful way dying to sink into the vault.

"Heh," kid didn't even care he was barefoot, it hurt Atem to warn him: "might not have long."

"I don't _care_," the pilot stressed bouncing on the balls of his feet, "anything is better than that fucking bed."

"Better not slow you down any longer then," he chuckled, cocking his head to the inside of the vault and Yugi didn't need permission beyond that to throw himself into the sim. The hydraulic door sealed and Atem allowed himself a proper smile as he pressed the intercom button. "Okay; three, two…"

The lights whirred, the drill started and bringing up the camera feed on the little view screen outside the vault Atem leant into the steel casing of it. There were about twenty vaults in the sim room all about the size of your average mech cockpit and panelled with touch screens. It wasn't much, some of the units were pretty out dated but it would have to suffice for now as Atem settled into his side.

Yugi didn't appear to spare him a second thought once the drill started, just threw himself into it, and quietly entranced Atem watched if only because there was so few other options to occupy himself with. This way he could call it guard duty he supposed cheekily. Response drills were actually pretty hard, all about reflex and timing. Part of it came down to attention, focus, but they were fun runs to cycle through. Red prompts flashed within a hundred and eighty degree field of vision for the pilot inside as well as on the floor panel and every prompt needed to be hit before another flared to reach a perfect score.

"Hey," Yugi called, "crank it up?"

"Sure," Atem laughed into the intercom. "Twenty four or five?"

"Five," the imperial beckoned hungrily.

Another cycle and Atem was unsurprised to find that even after being strapped to a bed for days Yugi Motou was damn good. Atem expected him to be fast given the black eye he had from the Knight that was still healing. Kid could run and he could fight something incredible so Atem guessed Yugi Motou could do these drills in his sleep. Yet even that was mildly depressing to the Republican…

_What were you like before someone put you in training?_ Atem pondered dazedly as he watched. _I bet you were a cute kid_._ I bet you're still cute when you laugh_...

He was too nice. He knew it. Motou had tried to massacre him multiple times. He just…there was no arguing with it. Atem pitied him. Atem was charitable and in Yugi Motou he saw something that just… there was a pain somewhere, something broken, something small and fragile and tender and alone he wanted to scoop up to scuttle off with somewhere safe. If Motou would let him Atem probably would've taken him into hiding at his Grandpa's on the farm in Turtle Village.

Yugi moved like his was born to it though. He moved with flair, grace, effortless and light. He was happy. Atem could tell. Hell, Kid even let his eyes flutter shut the cheeky thing. How he kept hitting the prompt screen with his eyes shut was mysterious and perhaps cheating. Perhaps he'd just done it too many times but bobbing his head along Atem caught the rhythm of it and realized that Motou had an instinctive beat…

Dancing? He laughed.

"Hey," he offered on the intercom, "you want some music?"

"Any loaded…?" Motou queried cautiously hand flat on the front screen to pause the sim.

"I think so," Atem shrugged, "should I check?"

"Please?"

Fuck, there went his heart. Atem tried to laugh it off.

"Just a sec Kiddo."

"You're not that much older than me you git." Yugi shot back with a grumble.

Yes, and the sass. Atem didn't want to admit he was beaming.

"You're that much shorter than me," he teased.

"Ha!" Yugi laughed. "Jackass!"

"Bitch," Atem couldn't resist, chuckling into the intercom.

The imperial laughed harder, curling a little, bewitching…

"Hurry up!" He giggled. "You asleep?"

* * *

1 Google the translation of Cara Mia's latin lyrics for an extra Easter Egg~  
2 Turtle Village comes from the Kame Game Shop aka Turtle Game Shop  
3 Notice, if you're interested, when and how often Atem mentions his mother (because he does quite frequently round Yugi and if you can pinpoint when it starts you might learn something knew about our heroic Bohemian~ ctrl f will help)

Extra Songs:  
Heba- Good with Grenades "Pop, Lock and Drop Dead"  
Atem- Michael Buble "Just Haven't Met you Yet"  
**Atem/Yugi Theme: Pink "True Love"  
**Yami/Yugi; Pink "Please Don't Leave Me"  
**Current Gambit Theme: "The Pitch- Spectacular, Spectacular"**

**Next Time:** Yugi makes a statement, Heba pulls a vanishing act, while both Atem and Yami fall in very different ways.


	16. Chapter 16

Hey guys! Survived the holiday season and next week I promise to bring you a belated Christmas Special. Though seriously of all the fics to have a Christmas chapter Gambit isn't really what I would have expected to be my first one…

* * *

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

(Track- Jem "Missing You")

Time was running pretty short Atem figured when he managed to assemble the steely self-control necessary to remove Yugi from the vault. Part restrained part heartbroken, career soldier and farm boy argued, he wanted to let the kid play all afternoon not re-strap him to a bed. Okay, maybe he… maybe just a little… Atem shook his head, ruffling like a dog, as the door of the simulation vault unhinged and taking Yugi's elbow in hand he helped the Imperial out of the cooling chamber.

He would've cuffed him, was in the motion but-

"Hey," Yugi murmured pivoting in his grip to tilt his chin up to Atem, "_thanks_."

"Heh," Atem coughed, recovering in the face of startling sincerity. "It's okay. You look better now."

"You know…I don't get why you're so nice." The smaller admitted, brow twitching to crest.

"I…" he laughed. "I just don't think you ever settle a fight till someone puts their hand up to stop being nasty first. You know?" _You remind me of being little. You remind me of my Mom_.

"Pfft," Yugi scoffed rolling his eyes but it lacked real venom, and as he inhaled it tumbled into something of laugh. "You're weird. Has anyone ever told you that?"

Atem would've answered, he had the smile and the comeback ready right out of an afterschool special but shuffling closer on bare toes Yugi's fingers rose curiously to trace the scar on his musky cheek. He froze, dumbstruck, as fingers tangled over his skin to become a palm, cradling his face, thumb rubbing the mar.

"You're still handsome," Yugi mused in appraisal as if it was in spite of everything adding cheekily; "you need to shave though."

"Y-yeah…" He whispered, holding air as if he were snorkelling. Waiting. Smile twitching uncertainly.

"I want to destroy you." The imperial confessed. "It's hard not to like you at the same time though. Drives me fucking nuts… You know I'm going to kill you, right?"

"Why?" Atem mumbled down to him palms strangely empty. "You don't have to." _You don't have to do any of this_.

"I want to." Yugi assured him. "You're a worthy opponent. It drives me furious to have competition, to lose, to fail, to…I could _die _I get so angry but I've kind of wanted an equal sometimes. It's boring, lonely, being the only lightning tosser out there."

"I…" he chuckled. "I can't say I get it. I don't want anyone to get hurt."

"I don't get you either." Yugi's thumb traced the very scar he'd given Atem, gently, as if that settled it and he was content to go on with a misunderstanding.

Atem knew there was a right thing to say in some fairy tale, something that might win Yugi Motou over from his side of the page to theirs but never dreadfully eloquent. All ideals and no words Atem struggled to find a sentence that summed it up. It was pity but it wasn't what he felt. _I want to help_ and _you're amazing_ and _you could be good_ and _who hurt you I want to fix it_ all together at once. Was there a word for that feeling? Was there a way to woo an alien species, to woo war to docility, and just have a place where people talked rather than pointed guns? Atem wanted to live in that world. In a bizarre fancy he wanted to live in a world where he could ask Yugi Motou if he liked apple pie and do response drills with him all afternoon without being court martialed.

It was…foreign, uncomfortable, the sensation of interlocking opposites Atem found. He thought that all at once he could draw out terrible things in Yugi Motou and yet also he could pull up these moments where the smaller had sweet hands and soft lips and… Atem didn't look at people. He had his head perpetually in the clouds, dazed, but just for a second… he couldn't compute it… soft desire, happiness, compassion, the urge to be the same… Yugi Motou, Atem almost closed his eyes, he smelt almost like his mother…

_SMACK_

Atem's head spun and the impact of the fist rattled him right off his feet to slump against the tiles. Knees in his back, hands on his tugging and arranging as he experienced a moment of breathless grogginess in the flipping of his stomach and the realigning of gravity…

Fuck Motou could throw a punch.

Yugi's hand had been so fast Atem hadn't even felt it peel from his cheek to draw back into the hook.

Atem had to blink to get his vision back and by then he realized, struggling, he was hogtied.

"W-what did you-!?" He struggled.

Motou, rising from the floor where he'd been pressing the Bohemian down, left him to realize that Atem's left ankle had been cuffed to his right wrist behind his back. Oh that was wicked genius. Fuck. Atem was in _so_ much trouble.

"I'll see you later," Yugi repeated on his feet without any spite.

"Hey!" Atem panicked. Escaping, tricked, played- "You-!"

"Thanks though," Motou repeated sincerely tapping his way briskly to the door, "I meant it."

He ran, vanished, light footed to his escape attempt.

Groaning, Atem buried his face in the floor, stupid _stupid_…He'd gotten all gooey and dumb. He blinked, eyes burning outside his notice, and knew he'd regret this for a very long time. Compassion had gotten the best of him. _Again_. It would cost people, cost Yugi Motou, and General Ishtar might never trust him with anything ever again. Stupid, so stupid, Atem hissed kicking himself. _Fuck! _

_Come back,_ he sighed into the floor, _fuck_…

* * *

(Track- Pink! "Bad Influence")

Yugi ran, pelted, in a pair of stolen boots across the concrete courtyard under a blistering Republican sun. The simulation tank had allowed him to woo his stiff muscles back into shape easily enough. Yugi's body was malleable. It was so used to hours and hours of physical abuse that it took to motion much easier than inertia. He only needed a little warm up.

He navigated himself under the watch tower towards the fifteen foot concrete wall. The Rebels were sloppy, security was poor, and even surrounded by Imperials they didn't have appropriate guard stations or security measures. For a big onslaught they'd manage, if someone was right in their face, but one imperial running? Nope. They were fucking hopeless.

Not that Yugi blamed them. The whole country seemed brain dead. Their national hero for example was a fluffy little moronic _tosser_. Yugi was embarrassed at Atem. _Really big guy? You let the ultra-dangerous prisoner go for a walk cause he pouts? _Oh he was too fucking easy. Next time they brawled Yugi was just going to fake some tears like a soccer player and watch Horakhty roll over for him. The man was an absolute dumbass. Not that Yugi had missed that gooey little look creeping into the Republican either. Apparently even across continents great men thought with their heads lodged in their fucking pants.

Yugi scaled the parked jeep against the wall, hooked his hands to the outside of the watch tower in a hopping leap and hauling himself up the side of the structure started to reach the top of the barricaded concrete wall surrounding the base. His heart was pumping, alive, and in hospital whites and a couple of boots he felt surprisingly stellar. Dumb fucking Republicans and crazy escape attempts. Just another day for Yugi fucking Motou national sociopath, he grinned.

He could see the top of the wall just to his right as he hooked his arms round the railing of the crow's nest balcony of the watch tower. No barbed wire on the top of the wall? Republican funding must've been _shite_. Yugi hopped, straddled the top of the wall, slid himself over and hands clasping the top of the concrete checked over his shoulder. Those were the trees he wanted, the grass underneath he was aiming for, and if his Knights were any good at all they wouldn't be far.

Yugi lessened his grip, inhaled, and rather than jump he _slid_. Big difference. A jump down the fifteen foot wall would've really hurt. The impact would've taken the wind out of him. It shouldn't have been enough to seriously injure or impede him but it would've slowed him down even if Yugi knew how to fall right (his first lesson in basic training actually and by now he had stacked up years of practice). So instead Yugi hugged the rough surface of the concrete and grinding against it for half of the slip used it to slow his fall. It cained, admittedly, he ripped skin off his forearms, his hands, his stomach where the fucking hospital shirt rode up and even his knees protested before the final feet of free fall.

He hit the grass, bleeding and stinging profusely but found it was worth it. Ankles steady he pushed off the soft ground and started running again. Almost there.

Just then, slow on the uptake, an alarm started over the wall one of those blaring, dreadful, sirens from low budget crappy security joints. Yugi snorted. Good job Bohemia another almost successful advantage blundered because of sappy heroes and bad watch guards. Yugi intended to give them a long, slow, clap when he reached home.

Instead he ran, hit the tree line and didn't stop. He tucked, ducked, kept moving and pushed it. He needed to find his crew, find his mech in hiding, and either go back to blow some shit up properly or go home and laugh.

Yugi cleared what must've been another hundred meters, the siren faded and the brush started to get thick. The Republicans couldn't see him, couldn't very well chase him either with no idea where the Knights were waiting so Yugi as relatively safe. He twisted, paused, caught sight of the sun through the trees and got his bearings as he panted resting his hands on his knees. He could run for another couple hundred meters without stopping and he'd be fine. Lord after three days in what he considered the most inane torture on earth he could probably run for a click or three.

Hospitals, sedatives, medical clothes…

He shuddered on instinct. Fuck Yugi hated hospitals he couldn't escape. Loathed them. Never ever wanted to see the inside of another one again now the Republicans had reminded him just how much he despised them. They smelt like his childhood. They smelt like bad dreams and languishing torment. Someone was going to pay for thinking it was fucking funny to keep Yugi Motou strapped to a bed for three days when Yugi got his mech back. The pulse laser needed a shine off.

He ran again, another sprint, and followed course. He couldn't be far off now. Unless his dumbass counterparts had carried his mech between the three of them it should've still been waiting for him up ahead under cover. Ryuji might've been able to break into his cockpit but Katsuya was too stupid to attempt it and Hitoro way too nervous to even try.

Yugi cleared the next wave of trees.

Jou jumped, floundered, canteen in hand as he tumbled back from the downed fire's edge.

"S-shit!" He swore on reflex.

Yugi skidded to a halt and found, panting, that he was cackling.

"Yug!" The blonde blabbered. "The fuck…? -You?"

The scruffy sharp shooter gave up, fell into gesturing and gesticulating over him. A quick glance told Yugi that his tagalongs had set up camp round his mech waiting for a chance to break him out while they surrounded the Republican base with backups. He snorted.

"Where are the others?"

"Taking a piss," Jou floundered bluntly. "Shit man you scared me!"

"Ha," he grunted, "get em together then and let's get the fuck out of here!"

"Sir yes _sir!_" The blonde laughed dazedly.

Yugi grinned.

God he was good.

* * *

(Track- "Ake Ni Somaru" from Jigoku Shoujo)

Yami knew reasonably that he ought take his boots off and enjoy a quite night's rest in peaceful isolation but he was tense. He could trace the feel of Yugi's fingers on his shoulder blades as they ached and resting his face into his palms he knew he was failing to deliver. What kind of Emperor couldn't keep their harlot off the enemy chopping block? His inner Catholic, crushed as he was, wondered if this was some test of faith or some pacifist sign or some other bullocks.

He scoffed to the silence, elbows on knees and found himself twitching uneasily at the empty fire. Yami was just a greedy child. He wanted validation. As a grown man he had responsibilities but a fool he longed for someone to tell him, assure him, he was succeeding. Curt friends were hard to come by and the best he had was the unwavering support of Mahado.

"Heba…?" He whispered.

Nothing.

Where was he? It seemed with Yugi's disappearance so had followed Heba's. Yami's stomach knotted. It was disgraceful to consider he was failing. Was that it? Ashamed had Heba found consult with some rebel, Kaiba even, to replace him?

"Heba," he called to the empty room. The boy manifested from nothing so often, seemed to hear every word, where was he when Yami longed for him? Was this some indignant test against weakness, some trial, or was the vile fiend actually exhausting himself at the laboratories?

In six months Yami hadn't gone longer than twelve hours without some sign of the slender, dark, wraith with the gem eyes. Without him Yami found…without his pushing…

He was nervous.

Yugi…

He needed to get Yugi back without turning a cheek to Dartz. He couldn't afford to expose them to a strike… but Yugi…

"_What?_"

"Heba!" Yami jolted at the sudden impatience crashing like a breaking wave in the silence.

He was there, suddenly, where he hadn't been a second ago.

Over his shoulder the dashing little wraith crossed bare slender arms over his petit chest. He was all awash in black today, fabric licking bare ankles, completely covered yet arms so delicately exposed. Congealed plum watched Yami rather unforgivingly in the dimness of the moonlight and the Emperor was uncertain how best to proceed so he turned to anger.

"Where have you been?" He rasped curtly.

"I thought you wanted to mess around on your own."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh I'm sorry," Heba lilted, "I didn't realize you wanted to scheme in front of me. I should've known. I would've bought light reading."

"What…what on earth are you talking about…?" Yami already tenuous stomach shrunk, coiling back uneasily.

"I had the impression _Yami _that you wanted me out of the way so you could spy and rifle through my things. So I thought I'd let you."

"If this is about Mana-"

"Oh no," he hissed falling into a chortle, turning harsh from grin to sour ferocity. "Why ever would it be?"

Heba did not need to raise his voice. Hellfire lived in those eyes, that humble frame, and it alone made Yami flinch.

He was so internally vast for something so tiny. Like a Faberge egg Yami sometimes though he could fit Heba in his palm.

"You can't blame me for…" he swallowed under the mellowed, impenetrable, glance. Crocodile eyes watched him out of the water and he couldn't finish the thought.

"Go on," Heba purred, "_dig_. Justify Fleshling."

"Heba…" Yami's breath wavered. _Apologize moron_. He felt like a little boy caught with his pants down at the Christmas tree.

"You don't trust me."

He didn't but he felt strangely guilty about being caught in the act.

"I don't need you," Heba whispered, hands slipping to his thighs.

Yami was perplexed, unable to look away, afraid to stay still.

"Do you have _any_ concept in that mushy little brain of yours what the dictators of history would've done for me?" He seemed to glow. "I have an IQ in the _thousands_ and I'm here babysitting _you._"

Knots, knots, little tight steel ones lacing Yami's veins anxiously...

"If you want me to leave Fleshling," Heba whispered, "just say the word. I'll stop."

He gestured, hand waving across the air as if he were letting something very small free.

"I want to give you a chance. I want to give you…" he murmured then very gently, nearly fragmented Yami thought. "You…"

Heba inhaled in a hiss, teeth clenched, fingers curling round air by his sides in pain and growling out he lost the glassy quality in his eyes. His hand flicked the air again, dismissive, and throwing it all down the wraith-

He was leaving.

"Heba!"

He didn't stop.

"Heba please!" Yami fled onto his feet from the fire. "Please I'm sorry!"

Yami reached, almost touched but unable to bring himself to make contact fell back to his knees on the carpet. Heba paused, waited, and fingers suspended outstretched Yami searched for the appeal. Without Heba he'd lose. Without Heba he wasn't smart enough, wasn't special enough, for _anything_. Without Heba he'd be dead and buried behind some shed while Gozaburo slept in Yami's father's bed. He'd be doomed. Was Yugi Motou really interested in a fool? An idiot who couldn't manage himself? Yami had pitched himself as capable, they had expectations and without Heba he was a posturing fraud of a child clutching uneasily at straws. Without Heba he'd only ever have been Minister Sennen the cowering prince allowing himself to be disrespected by acting as a coward.

"Heba…" he groaned. "Love-"

"Save that petulant crap for Motou."

He cringed.

Wait…_Yugi_…

How would he ever negotiate to reclaim Yugi by himself? Heba could spin circles round Dartz with Yami's mouth. Heba could have Yugi back in his bed by the end of the week. He just…

_Grovel_.

_Right now or you're fucked_.

"I'm sorry," he appealed tenderly. "You have to understand you're a lot. You make me nervous. Men fear what they don't understand. Comprehending you is…Believing you is…I…"

There was a famous saying that the opposite sex was a foreign shore, unknowable, and Heba was an entirely different planet (no doubt the same dreadfully intimidating place that had spawned Motou).

"I need you." Yami hissed at his shoulder blades. "I _need you_. I'd be lost without you."

Heba's eyes peaked coolly over his shoulder searching for sincerity. They had the same pitch black glitter to them that Yugi's did. What was Yami signing up for? What if Heba really was telling the truth? He hated to consider something so ridiculous but if it was true could Yami tame him back from the edge of real danger if or when they got there? Was Heba old enough to know his own boundaries, himself, better than as an ultra-smart child essentially? Was he mature?

Yami thought then in a flash, gazing at the mirror image of Yugi's face, of the supple skin of the pilot's inner forearm and suddenly none of it mattered. Fuck it.

_Sell your soul_ _Faust_, sung the back of his mind and all Yami could think was;

_Sign me up_.

"Little one-"

* * *

(Track- IKO "Heart of Stone")

Even if the world now looked different from Yami's seat nothing could be done the next morning. The Bohemians were telling Yami precious little about Yugi's keeping or conditions and Dartz had belligerently refused to take his call all morning despite hounding. If they were organizing an execution or worse preforming one then Yami had no way of knowing or combating. Especially given what little contact the units surrounding Yugi's point of capture maintain with HQ given rampant static interference.

He languished in his office through most of the morning. He wasn't particularly interested in ministry finance right now. He should've been. That was his job. The whole world didn't stop because his wild, crazed, strumpet got captured.

Yami sighed through his fingers, contemplated the liquor in the bottom drawer of his desk with more serious consideration than he should've rightfully invested at noon on a Thursday.

The new receptionist, the one who'd replaced Mana today, gave a shriek as the door clattered open.

Yami jolted.

Yugi kicked the door shut and jutting his hips to the right planted one firm hand on the cocked bone.

"Good morning," he smirked, "you've been taking your fucking time with negotiations haven't ya?"

Yami's fingers fell into silence on the desk top. He blinked. For a second he supposed he was dreaming, that reality had simultaneously back flipped, because everything seemed almost impossibly normal bar Yugi's dishevelled condition. Covered in scratches, nasty looking scrapes, the pilot was wearing what Yami could only fathom were a stolen t-shirt and a pair of jeans in dreadful need of ironing.

"_Well?_" Yugi laughed. "What are you staring at me for?"

Yami stood before he really processed the next thought. He wanted to slap him, rattle Motou's cheek bones under his skin but then he reached him and like some dumbstruck teenage boy he was throwing his arms round him.

Yugi yelped, startled, arms floundering for purchase round Yami's shoulders as the elder lifted the child right off his feet till his tip toes only brushed the carpet.

Yami inhaled, shaking despite the steel inside him, and buried his face in Yugi's bare, tender, neck. Oh Christ… he still smelt right. Still warm, still sweaty, still firm under Yami's hands and shrill in his ears and… He took a breath.

Yugi's arms slacked round him, the whole body seemed to uncoil, as confused the pilot had no choice but to allow himself to be cradled, swept up, against his otherwise stalwart Emperor.

Yami sighed, throat thick, expression firm and planted Motou back onto his feet stiffly. Yami composed himself or he tired at any rate because stumped the little harlot's hands dragged to rest on his shoulders as Yugi obviously tried to digest the exact specifics of the moment. Did Yugi expect Yami to yell at him? To straighten him out? To spank him?

The boy's shoulders fell. His eyes went down, came back up, blank and naïve and confused in the most ridiculous manner before suddenly Motou was throwing himself at Sennen. Thin, wiry, arms tightened fast round Yami's shoulders hefting Yugi and squeezing the child buried his face in Yami's otherwise pristine shirt. Yami realized then he was gripping back, face falling into the child's thick and waiting hair, arms steely round his waist, fingers curling in thick locks to cradle the back of his scalp._ Better_.

They tensed, pressed and crushed for a long string of seconds.

Then they both seemed to ease, properly, and slowly, gently, Yugi settled back onto his feet for a second time in an ugly set of raided sneakers that made him smaller and didn't at all suit Yami's image of him. Yugi's fingers were curled over his chest in the opposing sides of Yami's open blazer, eyes steady and sighing Yami still couldn't entirely find anything to say.

"Surprise…?" Yugi quirked one shoulder, apparently thrown by the absence of a serious lecture he seemed to expect.

"Don't you_ ever_do that to me again." Yami warned stoutly in response. Stiff. "Do you understand?"

Yugi nodded dumbly.

"Your unit?"

"In the hangar…?"

"Injuries?"

"Minor?" Yugi shrugged, arms bent, one forearm slightly aloft in demonstration of the scrapes.

Yami kept one arm snug round his waist, twisted his chest back round, and hand wandering reached the intercom.

"Miss Wong cancel my appointments."

His fingers left before the reply.

"Heh," Yugi breathed, "don't you have a country to run or something…?"

"You don't want to argue with me right now." Yami promised curtly. "I'm still contemplating locking you in a tower with grievous sincerity."

"Alright then," he quipped in surrender, hands up.

"We're going to bed."

"It's noon."

"I hope you're not hungry then."

Yugi blinked, bounced his shoulders and inside the pilot a white flag seemed to go up. Part of Yugi seemed to contemplate: _rightio, he's lost it, well then_…Yami didn't give a rat's.

* * *

(Track- Immortal Technique "Dance with the Devil" _instrumental)_

Sennen wasn't a real delicate sod still, that much hadn't changed, instead Yugi was hauled by his elbow down a series of hallways past security ports into the private wing of the palace. He would've shrugged the Emperor off but frankly that seemed like a bad choice given the sternness radiating off the stuffy codger. Prim Sennen, of course, back with a vengeance and huffing at his fringe Yugi thought it best not to argue. Least the place was almost empty given it was an hour where sane, decent, normal people worked and ate.

They rounded a hallway Yugi recognised, nearly there, and Sennen twisted him in something of an amazing motion. One second they were facing the same direction then Yugi was the other way by a ballroom flick of the wrist and barely stopping Sennen half knelt in stride to hook his arms round Yugi's middle pushing his shoulder under the pilot till- The blood in Yugi spun down towards his head as Sennen hefted him in effect, bouncing him, over his shoulder like plebeian caveman. Yugi cawed in instant dismay.

"_Oi!_" He railed pushing off the small of Sennen's back with both his hands.

"Shut up."

Sennen opened the door with one arm secure round the back of Yugi's knees and then the whole world flipped when the Emperor tossed him down across the bed. Given another moment Yugi would've rebelled but Sennen was quick, business like, in parting his thighs and knees on the bed settled between them to lean over him.

Yugi rose to his elbows and instantly regretted it when he came nose to nose with the Emperor prowling over him on his hunches. The smart ass quip died in his throat upon searing eye contact and thinking better of it Yugi found himself laying back as Yami followed him down wordlessly. It was primal the complete, animalistic, lack of communication between them.

He settled back into the sheets, fell quiet and limp, in an odd way trying almost to appear docile under a flare of Sennen's peculiar temper. It was different for Yugi to play small when he tended to bite for a living but… it just seemed…appropriate?

Maybe…

"Yami," he whispered, offhandedly.

Irises contracted, tightened and eased all the way down Sennen's spine. The corner of Yugi's lip perked up. _Got ya_.

Sennen's lips worried his brow, his temples, down the curve of his cheek and jaw. Yugi slumped, sighed back, decided to let him rove. It seemed easier that way. Regardless some of the Emperor's passion had apparently been diffused with Yugi's whispers. Sennen's palms skirted up his side, bunching the tee under his armpits, exposing new skin to kiss down in a broken progression as from peppering his clavicle Sennen darted languidly back up to drag his tongue along Yugi's neck. A nuzzle here, a nip here, back down from the junction of his shoulder to his pebbled nipples.

_Ah_- Yugi breathed tight. Yami's fingers flexed round his waist tongue slick over the buds. The pilot would've squirmed his legs shut if the Emperor hadn't already been planted between them solidly. Fingers curling, teeth and tongue, Yugi slipped into breathlessness biting his lip.

"Where'd you find this?" Sennen grunted pushing at his tee to force it over Yugi's head with belated assistance.

"Was in hospital smocks," Yugi breathed in a moment of reprise, "had to wear something, this was all the boys had that fit- _hmm_."

Yami's lips squeezed round a sensitive bud as Yugi fell back with the shirt still tangled round his wrists. Down, down, pecking his navel, licking his hip bone… Lord at this rate Sennen might as well just consume him and be done with it.

"Hospital smocks?" Sennen pestered, buried against his navel, thumbs working along Yugi's hips and down the jeans.

"_Mh_-fuckers kept me sedat-_ah_…"

"Sedated?" The Emperor paused, Yugi's zipper in hand, and growling settled back down between his thighs. "_Filthy rebels_."

Yugi had heard Sennen say a lot of not so nice things but that said he'd never known Yami Sennen to fall into the '_rebel'_ rhetoric of old Gozaburo who thoroughly endorsed the idea that the Bohemians were nothing more than revolutionaries protesting holy monarchist rule. Denim slipped down Yugi's thighs and distracted his focus however.

Yami's lips motioned down messily between his bare thighs and Yugi fell into that old trap. The name was in his head now, legs spreading, purring. Tenderness… nice…

"Hm-_oh_…" Yugi purred, spread.

Yami's arms curled. Here a hand squeezing his hip, there another running along his inner thigh, the man's lips along the skin of the opposing leg nestling towards Yugi groin with his tongue. No nails, no teeth, just…just nice… Yugi sighed into his knuckles, arched, felt the muscles in his back unlace a fragment as Yami licked his thigh- _Aah_-_hmoh_…

"_Ah!_" It should've been a moan but it was a yelp.

Yugi's whole body curled up on reflex to shove at Sennen's shoulders. The Emperor's hands fastened hard round his hips and tugging him back towards his tongue forced a struggling Yugi to slap back into the bedding without the aid of his arms to supporting him. Legs trapped over Sennen's shoulders, Yami between them, hips squirming uselessly Yugi felt himself colour for the first time in years. He was blushing.

"T-the hell a-_aah_…" Oh God. Yugi would've been cool with a blowjob not- No. "_Eha!_"

His fingers fisted in the sheets, head arching back, held tightly in place as oh so slowly Yami's lips pressed against his entrance. No way. No- _oh_- his- _hnn- _Sennen's tongue swiped the tight crux, circled the rim languidly and-_God_-what? Yugi couldn't-

"_Aah!_"

Another strangled sound from Yugi's twitching and trapped form, a kiss, firm, Sennen's tongue pushing almost inside him, swiping the rim…

Oh _fuck_…

_Yesyesyes  
_  
"_Oaah_…" the sound extended into a low, long, unsure whimper. Moan? Maybe. Yugi fluttered vulnerably. He physically couldn't still his hips from the little jerks of confused arousal. It felt good, oversensitive, but his mind railed on instinct. You weren't supposed to- sure, people _did_ but that was _other._ Sennen didn't- Yugi hiccupped a, hot, slippery tongue circling languidly between his thighs at the tight skin.

"Feel that?" Yami rasped. "You're flexing."

"Hnn…" he groaned. "You shouldn'_mmm_…"

He sighed, gave a little purr, and almost growling against his skin Sennen asserted his weight between Yugi's parted thighs, asserted the strength of the body on its hunches, licking at Yugi. Yugi weakened, resistance slipping, easing and the stroking tongue exploited him to dip the tip, weaselling, just past the ring of muscle teasingly. Delicate pressure withdrew, lips kissing his entrance, slick and…

Yugi panted, flushed and ridiculously embarrassed and _aching_.

"Ooh…_yes_." His head came back as one saliva slickened digit pressed against him and parting him sunk to the hilt. "Yesyes…"

Yami began to straighten himself, take back the height innate in his posture, licking round the rim of his own finger before he sat between the pilot's legs jerking Yugi with tiny, squelching, thrusts of his palm.

"God… fuck…" Yugi moaned hips free to rock into the motion anew, eyes squeezed shut as he turned into one palm already grasping the sheets.

Yami- When the hell did he get lube? He must've because the head- _Oh_ the _head_… Yugi purred as withdrawing his fingers Sennen rubbed the tip of his cock against him and, taking the boy's hips back, starting to creep inside, back into place…

All thoughts of any strategy, any complaint, evaporated as the Emperor's groin moulded into the curve of his backside and Yugi forgot how to exhale with the other's arousal steely and spreading inside him. Yami paused, Yugi remembered how to pant, and blinking his lids apart the pilot found the stare currently supervising him.

"H-_ah_…" So good. Cheque please.

Yugi was just a mess of bony clavicle and goose-bumped arms. Toes curling against Yami's suit as his gangly, lithe, legs wrapped round the Emperor seated within him. Yami leant into his palms as they rested by Yugi's waist, totally dressed, sighing to savour the embrace of the smaller body underneath him.

"I missed you," Yami fumbled weakly, eyes falling closed.

"I missed you too," Yugi panted, dazed but startlingly sincere as his fingers unbuckled from the sheets to reach for the man like a toddler.

The Emperor sighed, arms working under Yugi's spine to lock round his naked body and clutch them along each other. Yugi exposed, Yami shielded, making the pilot's skin prickle. There was something so satisfying about the weight of the man laying atop him, grinding softly into him as Yugi's arms slipped under the man's straining shirt to feel his warm back.

Yami kissed the plush of his cheek rocking on his toes, and nearly his elbows and knees, to rub his cock along Yugi's insides without ever really, properly, thrusting. Thrusting required too much space while they were spider-webbed up embracing like this. It just seemed uncalled for, unholy, to pull apart from the fusion.

Yugi whimpered, little tiny noises, purring and gasping as the bigger man fumbled hotly against the cove of his ear with breathy moans that slowly turned guttural.

* * *

1 Why yes Yami's new secretary is Vivian Wong.  
2 Immortal Technique "Dance with the Devil" is a cool song but please be prepared for a dark shock if you listen to it with the lyrics.

**Hint Songs:**  
Atem/Yugi- _Holding Out For a Hero_ Frou Frou cover  
Yami/Yugi- _Save the Last Dance For Me_ by Michael Buble  
Yami/Heba- _Down Boy_ by Holly Valance  
Yugi vs Heba- Crazy Possessive by Kaci Battaglia

**Extra Song:** for Heba's secret theme song send me a review asking for it with the answer to this question- _how many years older than Yugi is Yami?_

**Blindshippers: **before four chapters are up we will see Atem again~

**Next Time:** the Empire celebrates Christmas, Yugi gives Yami the only thing he's wanted all year, the news gives Atem a revelation, Heba promises to pay up later, the Knights play and something in the palace goes bump in the night…


	17. Chapter 17

It's Christmas! Belatedly…? Please enjoy~

_Special Note:_ sorry if I didn't clarify but Mana hasn't been fired. She's still transferred looking into secret files for Yami but she's not going to be looking at any of Heba's any time soon. That's all. Don't worry our favourite beach bumblebee is safe!

* * *

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN  
(Track- "Samson" Regina Spektor)

Yugi could consent to stay like this for a while.

Yami had let him get dressed, had made phone calls from bed, had let the afternoon drag on and now with a drink in hand the Emperor had Yugi's head in his lap. Yugi rested into his thigh, fingers lulling on the man's knee, ruing Cyprus was bitterly cold now whereas in the temperate tropics Bohemia was always so horridly hot. Yami's fingers carded through his hair, nails scraping his scalp carefully, and every few sips the Emperor's hand would idle to cup his cheek and stroke his cheek bone. It was nearly domestic.

How had they become domestic…?

Yugi could insist he was one of the most fearsome people on the planet. Yugi Fucking Motou. He knew too that he had spent most of his life ignorantly dismissive of Yami Sennen and now he confessed to spending the afternoon in his lap.

Fingers slipped along his neck, round his shoulder, and with a nestle and a push Yugi pulled himself up to sit into the man's side so he could prop his chin on Yami's shoulder. The arm slipped round his waist instead and Sennen laid his glass on the nearest table over the armrest of the antique couch. His hand placed Yugi's on his own clavicle, pulled the pilot in and Yugi felt his lids drift shut.

"It's cold," he sulked inanely, he hadn't bothered to speak very often with Sennen for much of their history and now he found he was so comfortable when they didn't converse he wanted to fill the space.

"Of course it is," Yami snorted.

"Hey, were you worried?" Yugi started to draw connections hesitantly against the man's frame.

"Yes." He admitted straining against his teeth quietly.

"Why?"

"Because they could've killed you," he sighed. "All things considered they probably should've."

Yugi couldn't see the danger, couldn't perceive it, in any real way. He wasn't afraid of death he thought. He was afraid of other, living, conditions so much more he rarely thought about an end. He'd wanted to be back here though. Strapped to a hospital bed had been in Yugi's top three worst nightmares ever since he was petite. He grazed the underside of Sennen's face with his eyes and couldn't talk about it anymore except to acknowledge that this was better. This was better than last year. His life chorused a little better when he worked with Sennen's current but he'd try still not to envision a future long term. Yugi didn't make assumptions about fate. Nothing was stable and there was still that old concern.

"Do you remember what tomorrow is?" Yami pestered in the silence.

"Fuck if I know," Yugi grunted.

"It's Christmas."

"_Really?_" He mulled. Yeah, actually, that sounded about right. He'd lost track of time. His first, bizarre, thought was that they'd be here in the Empire right on time for Jou's stupid party thing. He was almost glad. His second thought was to remember the traditional festivities. "You going to have everything?"

"Ahm," Yami concurred, rubbing up Yugi's side.

"I want to be in the tournament this time." They always had a mech battle at Christmas. It was legacy, the very bone marrow of tradition in a gladiatorial society like theirs.

"Alright," he permitted easily, "so long as you stay by me for the rest of the day."

"Why?"

"I don't want you out of my sight for a moment," was the quiet elaboration, "just indulge me for a day Yugi."

"Okay," he whispered permissively encouraging the Emperor to ease, sighing, into pressing him delicately closer. That contented the man plainly. He was increasingly possessive. "Do I have to dress up again?"

"A little," Yami shrugged, "we'll make it comfortable."

"Fair enough," Yugi folded.

"It's just the usual: wake up, have the cathedral holy day service, the morning speech, the parade, lunch, the afternoon tournament and then the ball and the fireworks. I'll end it early. People should be at home not bothering me. They're supposed to have loved ones to pester."

"Heh," he grinned mildly, "didn't get you a present. Bit tied up."

_Lame_, super lame even, but Yami snorted dryly.

"I have something in mind." The Emperor suggested correcting as Yugi's chin rose. "_Apart _from sex."

"Damn."

"I'd consider it a joint present to redesign your insignia." He butted their noses and Yugi found that letting him he even rested his brow in the Emperor's chin.

"Going to tell the whole world I'm your bitch?"

"Just imply it."

"Heh," Yugi laughed, "sure."

"You're supposed to argue with me." He kissed his brow, lips wet. "Throw up your hands and be insufferably tart."

"You're supposed to be a prim uptight douchebag who deserves it."

"Touché."

Their eyes meet, a breath apart, and Yugi found himself more interested in the aubergine hues than the lips. Yami pushed at his fringe, crossed his cheek and rested his palm on the back of his neck. Tight lips twitched, almost into a smile, and before Yugi noticed it his twitched up responsively. Yami's whole face dropped, his jaw nearly followed, so much so that for an instant Yugi supposed something terrible had happened till-

The hand cupping his neck twisted calloused fingers in his hair and forced Yugi into a brief but bruising kiss.

He pushed, almost grumbled, but Sennen smiled properly to him as if Yugi had just, finally, done something blissfully right. So he shut his mouth, he swallowed the moment, and swept up by something lightening Yugi found his lips stretching up again.

He'd remembered how to smile.

* * *

(Track- "White Demon Love Song" the Killers)

Jonouchi Katsuya, Honda Hitoro and Otogi Ryuji had been unable to submit their names into the Christmas day mech tournament due to placement on the field trying to assist Yugi in escaping. Yami had consented however to shuffle things around a little, pull some strings, in a tiny abuse of power to reward them with a chance to showcase themselves. Yugi had delivered the good news to his tagalongs (in the hangar apparently) who had been quite overjoyed at the prospect Yami was told. Katsuya had reportedly done a little twirl to '_Long live the king!_' which was almost literally singing Yami's praises if ever the Emperor had heard it. He hardly cared but '_Jou's dancing like a tosspot'_ had made Yugi cackle into his phone. That was good enough.

"Did Motou change his insignia?" Mahado stiffened in his seat beside Yami, now one of the most powerful men in the nation himself as a Minister. Yami quite liked the flip. It felt befitting that Mahado should be Minister for Defence and Yami Sennen Emperor as if everything had shuffled neatly into the places that should've been occupied years ago had it not been for Gozaburo.

"Christmas present," Yami snorted idly, lounging as he regarded the fanfare reigning down on the eight time imperial champion.

"That's quite…considerate of him." Mahado murmured.

"We've come to quite an amiable understanding."

"I should think that's best for everyone certainly." He sighed with something of prolonged relief. "Motou perhaps might mellow out now, be more reasonable, which should be spectacular for the war effort."

"I wouldn't hope for too much," Yami snorted. "We have his loyalty but you can't make a stone bleed and I doubt anyone can make Yugi Motou reasonable. Not even me."

Heba smirked round the rim of his glass, teeth scrapping his bottom lip as he giggled. Yami glanced, raised one brown across his left shoulder and coyly the witch extended his smirk knowingly. Yami grinned, hand lulling onto the arm rest, quite purposefully to invite Heba's to settle atop his soothingly. His support had increased and with Heba Yami was now surer than ever he had decades of good fortune before him.

"Kingmaker," he mumbled.

"Majesty," Heba whispered, winking.

Yami chuckled.

"Majesty?" Mahado perked on his right.

"Hmm?" Oh yes they had company. "Nothing."

Heba bit his lips to chortle quietly to himself.

Kaiba brothers be damned, President Dartz be damned, Yami thought. He had the throne, he had the power. He had everything. He would win the whole world. He would master and orchestrate a golden age never displaced from his rightful position ever again. He had the greatest powers currently in existence backing him. Atem Horakhty would lose to Yugi Motou and no intellect, Seto or Dartz included, could possibly outclass Heba Bound. All _his_.

* * *

(Track- "Satellite Heart" Anya Marina)

Bohemia stole glimpses of the grand Christmas processions in the Empire. They were hard core Catholic in Cyprus though, not like more liberal Bohemia where Ryou and Akefia could shack up quite legally, so it was fascinatingly foreign in its own way. It was a show really lots of snow, lots of colour, parades and streamers and packed out crowds singing '_Long Live the King!_' at the cameras for their benefit.

Atem didn't care about that so much. Christmas for him was a tiny thing. Christmas was low light in the lounge of his family's three roomed cottage, in thick farm country, with Grandpa Horakhty rocking in his chair by the fire. It was small, closeted, tender to Atem. Not lights and thousands of people on a cold street. No Atem had called his Grandfather, who was a little vague at the best of times, and had prepared himself for a Christmas morning beside the colleges who were now pseudo family to him.

He watched the stream of footage from Cyprus to…

To see Yugi Motou really, he would confess if only to himself, out of this weird curiosity about how the Imperial spent his Christmas especially with two of his adopted brothers still prisoners in a tower.

Atem caught sight of him whenever the cameras focused in on Yami Sennen, the Emperor, because Yugi was inevitably right next to him. Yugi had won some mech ceremonial tournament apparently since his escape and no time had been wasted in plastering his freed face across the cameras. Cyprus was excited to show off Yugi now that they had him back or maybe Sennen just liked demonstrating he had Yugi's support to his reign or-

Atem watched Yugi glance up at Sennen by his side and watched Sennen glimpse back under his own fringe. He watched them hold their mutual gazes for a moment. He watched Yugi smile, just a fraction, while they ignored the cameras and in front of thousands of people had a second to themselves.

Atem felt his shoulders subconsciously slump.

Yeah, '_Yami_' as in Yami Sennen Emperor of Cyprus had been exactly who Yugi meant when he had been unconscious in Atem's arms.

He snorted into his own palm, smiled a little, but…

God, he was an idiot.

It hurt.

* * *

(Track- "Yuukei" Rozen Maiden)

People turned out in their droves for the dawn mass and the parade in the streets. People liked Sennen apparently. Yugi got away with the whole affair in reasonably simple but perfectly arranged winter gear. Fifties jackets with little military emblazoned buttons and long boots. Shit that was easy to change into the for the tournament which, of course, he won but perhaps a little more surprisingly Jou managed to place second, Honda fourth, Otogi third. He was nearly proud of the fuckers. After hours blowing shit up dinner hit the gasket necessarily filling and while Yugi skirted free of the dancing he found the fireworks that shattered up through the snow falling in the night, blasting light over the palace, were still enchanting. He'd bet his cap Seto and Mokuba could see them from their prison tower.

He and the Emperor fell into bed, Yugi's bed, without anything more than an arm hooking round him and a second set of aching feet brushing his.

"I'm going out tomorrow," Yugi mumbled into Sennen's upper arm his back along the Emperor's front as the man clustered them closer, flexing his weight. Fuck they were getting so…so _homely_. Was this what normal was going to be from now on?

"Where?" Sennen demanded softly into the shell of his ear.

He was hardly intimidating.

"Agreed to go out with my toys," he yawned openly, "they wanna celebrate."

"And you want to join them?" Yami snorted.

"M'yeah," Yugi shrugged, lids sighing shut languidly.

"Okay," the Emperor sighed begrudgingly, slack and lax. "Don't get arrested this year."

"You'll post bail."

Yugi was sure of it especially when the Emperor grunted, unimpressed, and squeezed him. _Possessive_ was the word that drifted to the stagnant surface of Yugi's mind. He wasn't going into specifics, he refused to, and Sennen wouldn't make him delve deep without having to give back which the Emperor surely didn't want to do. They didn't talk about that. They weren't _that_ sort. Yugi knew intrinsically though that Sennen wanted him in perfect, pristine, condition for whatever mutually selfish reasons they shared. They made their lives easier and after only having him back for two days, after such a near cataclysm, Sennen wouldn't allow Yugi a night in a public cell when it could be spent in his bed. Protection, concern, affection…

* * *

(Track- Rozen Maiden "Bright Red")

Yugi nestled into his own forearms, waking on his stomach in a tangled heap and one leg oddly cold realized there was no older man, no ruddy form, pinning him in place like a dead butterfly. He winced through sleep, made the groggy shuffle to his elbows and knew he'd been tossing bad enough to clump himself in a tangled heap in the blankets. One leg stuck out onto the bare uncovered mattress, just bare skin and goose bumps, and weak from bed brain he thought in that childish way that Sennen had left back to the Emperor's quarters.

After today…?

Yugi startled, perked a little in dazed confusion, when he spotted the body leaning towards the glass of the windows. The fuck was he doing up at this hour…? He had the curtain barely parted with one hand, gazing out the moonlit slit, fractionally exposed in the light himself leaving the rest of the room a dank, dark, tomb. He was so still, apparently transfixed with something, that Yugi found it hard to formulate words.

"Yami…?" He mumbled.

In fragments of light slithering in, from just that, Yugi could only make out the way the man's chin tilted into his clavicle eyes grazing over his own shoulder back to the pilot. Yugi couldn't see his face in this light he only somehow knew it was the Emperor from an unconscious combination of scent and instinct.

They paused like that.

Yugi combed up the image of something from a pit, some reptile, looking straight at him from a chasm and in a second, he didn't know why, but he was…

Yugi sunk back down into the sheets, pulled them up round him, straightened and turned his face into the pillow.

Dreaming.

_Just_ _dreaming_.

The Emperor turned wordlessly back to the window, let the curtain flutter shut Yugi could hear and nearly see through the slit in his otherwise wired closed eyes. He didn't want to take his eyes off the man like this, didn't want to expose an artery to fangs, yet in the same breath he wanted the blankets over his head.

What was this? Wrong. _Wrong_.

Yami stood there, gazing at nothing, frozen and suspended but somehow incredibly hostile, volatile, dangerous…

_Hide_.

Yugi squeezed his eyes shut. It would go away. This phantom dream of waking to find some non-human thing would vanish.

Yami moved, Yugi kept his lids closed the blankets curled to his chest in his hands and even without looking there was something awkward, something shambling and wrong, about the gait of the steps. Yugi shrunk, pulling his knees up in the bed at the approach in a way he didn't quite comprehend.

Yami lay down, simply, just slumped limp and well placed on the other side of the mattress. Yugi flinched because all at once he expected to be struck, bit, scratched… Alien, foreign, unnatural this- _Don't touch it_. There was processing in Yugi's mind.

Still groggy Yugi fell back to sleep. He forced himself.

_Go away_.

* * *

(Track- "Garden Party" Rozen Maiden)

Boxing Day was possibly the only proper holiday Yami would get for some time and he had consented to let Yugi wander off with his pet-buddies into the city to cause public mayhem. Perhaps that had been a mistake. Checking the grandfather clock he supposed nine thirty was still far too early for a batch of military tough nuts to be home but if Motou hadn't sent him a drunken text by two am he was calling police stations.

"Mahado thinks I should get married," Yami sighed, tipping back the dregs of his glass sneaking from the window towards the fire, "for an heir of course. Actually had the gall to remind me I'm not getting any younger, with Mana's backing naturally."

"Hrm." Heba snorted distantly to the flame, cross legged and nearly naked in his silk, staring at the embers along the bottom of the hearth. Heba looked so young. Yami had thought he was a child once but his eyes were too old and he sneered too often.

"I supposed it could be nice, convenient, to steal Kaiba's potential bride for myself. I'd gain the backing of another noble family." He sunk into his seat glancing to his far wardrobe by the bed. He had to rue what on earth Yugi thought he was doing out this hour with his damn plebeian fan-club.

"Give me till next Christmas and I'll give you a present." Heba murmured vaguely.

"Hmm?" Yami pressed, cradling his elbows on his thighs. He could hardly marry without Heba's permission or approval now could he? His co-conspirator pulled so many strings the last thing Yami needed was a wife for the wraith to bark at unhappily.

"I hate cows heavy with seed." The witch leant back into his hands. "They're insufferably disgusting. Next year though, once I finish the Z0-RC and the EX0D1A, I can move onto a new project."

"Cloning me?" He joked dryly.

"After we win the war, early next year," Heba had a detailed schedule Yami was learning. Down to the very minute Heba intended to have the Z0-RC completed by. "You could use your power as supreme head of the church to legalize homosexual marriage. With the country in an economic golden age they'll let you do anything you want. Call it a human rights push. Then in June marry Motou. In September give him to me for two days with a sperm sample and I'll return him to you. He'll be heavy with child by Christmas."

"That's impossible…"

"Don't you so often tell me that Sweetling?" He glanced to Emperor over his pointed shoulder, clavicle almost exposed. "And aren't I always right?"

"But_ how…?_" Yami paled a little at how he leant forward into his own knees. Was nothing disgusting anymore? "The church will slam me for any kind of biological experimentation."

"Give me a propaganda office and I'll have the entire population thinking it's a miracle," he smirked coyly. "Besides, given a little controlled cancer and some nanobots there won't even be a scar for them to find. It'll look completely natural. _Super_natural."

If it had been anyone else Yami would've thought it fantastical, called it madness, but it was Heba. Yami could suspend disbelief enough to think him of all people possible of almost anything. He'd yet to find something Heba couldn't do. He was a lucky man like that.

"Our problem," he sighed heartily, "is that Motou will never consent to it. He'll pull my teeth out first."

Heba laughed, giddy and light, and arms slipping round himself fell back into the carpet as he drew his knees up thin fabrics slipping down his thighs. Trust Heba not to be cold when it was snowing. Trust Heba not to fake he was either.

"_What?_" Yami grunted tartly. He did not appreciate being a laughing stock. It was an old wound.

"Oh sweetling," Heba chortled softly, hair twisting on the carpet as he rearranged himself. "I tell you I can get you a quiver of heirs by your slut and what's your problem? Not God or ethic or money but that your tart won't let you. _Ha! _You're so ignoble! You're whipped!" He cackled airily again and sighed. "Woo Motou then. By next year he'll consent for you. You didn't exactly think him capable of all this intimacy last year did you? He's yours now."

Yami paused, elbows on his knees, as Heba considered his nails before his nose, picking under them, sprawled on his back.

"Never can argue with me, can you?" The witch smirked.

"Something like that," Yami sighed, raising his empty glass in a token gesture. "To your future godchildren then Kingmaker mine?"

Heba laughed.

* * *

(Track- "Die Young" Kesha)

"Holy shit man!" Honda laughed breathlessly as they ran skirting through the snow round a street corner.

They hit the main boulevard, Yugi cackled under the fairy lights, skidding to a halt and laughing, heart fluttering, readjusted his cap. Fuck. Jou came wheezing up after them, all gangly legs, after nearly knocking some poor woman with a pram right off her feet and threw himself into the edge of a frozen fountain.

"Oh my god," he panted, "shit Yug! I am taking you_ everywhere!_"

"If we live long enough to," Otogi wheezed, hands on his knees as he crunched in. "Fuck…I'm never… that guy went _down!_"

"Would've been out of there faster if Honda hadn't been recording it on his fucking phone," Jou chastised.

"So worth it," Honda defended blindly.

"He'll never know he got thrashed by Yugi Motou," Jou laughed, "that's almost criminal."

"You wanna go back and tell him?" Otogi challenged.

"Fuck no! They called the cops!"

"Heh," Yugi laughed, running his gloved hands over his neck. New gloves. Ceremonial events meant the palace was quickly expanding his limited wardrobe. The stuff from yesterday's parade wasn't too bad to wear out tonight either. "Last one to reach the joint on 6th has to tell Minister Mahado what happened."

Jou bolted, Yugi darted, they quickly outstripped Honda and Otogi but no one thought for a second to argue because no one doubted Yugi was serious or that it might be necessary for one of them to call from some hospital or train station. Yugi was careful of the snow, he and Jou danced round the crowd and sent a great deal of expensive, sour, looking nobles turning their noses up as they strolled between the four of them scattering.

The plan had been clubbing, bar hopping, but Yugi was too bored by something so inanely useless that relied solely on socializing. He was bad at people, bad at talking, so instead a series of dares turned into a scavenger hunt turned into three near arrests and two bar fights. It wasn't even midnight yet.

It was a brain dead concoction: I dare you to slap that big guy with the tatts, dare you to take off your pants, new rule says you have to skull drinks on Yugi's orders, get her number, grab his ass, find the expensive ice cream joint, sneak into _Club 9_ through the back door, last one to the Opera house has to dance for quarters, chicken in a train carriage going to Plizith first one to jump off has to buy next round of drinks…

Yugi was sweating through the freezing temperatures but years of hard routines kept him reasonably well charged. He could go all night. Hell, his comrades actually seemed to be enjoying themselves.

This was surreal.

Yugi had never had friends.

Not ones who could pretend to keep up with him, not ones he wanted, not ones he would make an effort for. It wasn't dreadful.

"Hey Yug," Jou panted sliding into the seat beside him. Typically Yugi had taken a shortcut through the back of a restaurant, through a crowded kitchen and down a fire escape to beat the rest of the team to reach the little fish and chip joint on 6th that was somehow still open.

"Not bad," Yugi grinned, raising his soft drink to the blonde. Tipping back to keep himself hydrated.

"Seriously, could never tell you were a prisoner like two days and a bit ago."

"Heh," he shrugged dismissively, "how'd you beat Honda and Otogi here?"

"Almost got hit by a car," he smirked.

"I am _such _a bad influence," Yugi grinned wickedly.

"I'm glad you agreed to come hang out with us," Jou chortled spinning on the stool, "thanks man. I appreciate it. Nice to be off duty properly ya know?"

"Not really," Yugi sipped. Was he ever off duty? He didn't exactly have a private life that wasn't intimately wrapped up in this shit. Certainly no biological family to run home to though speaking of… "Shouldn't you guys be hanging out with your parents or something?"

"Honda's folks live way far away near Helsinki and Otogi doesn't talk to his dad loads," Jou supposed casually.

"You?"

"Don't really get on with my folks. Dad's a punk ass shit, I got into the military to get _away _from him." Jou snorted darkly then perking: "I've got a lil sister though, real sweet, thinks you're the bomb. She's working at the outer laboratories in top secret stuff. She's fucking brill, I'm so proud of her like you wouldn't believe."

"Why didn't you shack up with her then?" Yugi pestered absently. "She's just out of the Capital. They'd shut the labs for Christmas."

"Nah she agreed to work extra shifts," Jou grumbled. "She's living on site at the moment. She's super into her job. It's like they've got a fucking cult out there. She's in love with her boss, Doctor Bound or something, thinks he's a genius proto-superstar or something…"

"Argh," Yugi attempted to sympathise, "retarded."

"It's kay, she called and I sent her presents and stuff." Jou smiled. "Couldn't plan much anyway cause we were all busy with your rescue op."

"Bullshit," he snorted, "I rescued myself."

"Ya did," Jou admitted. "How'd you manage that anyway?"

"Convinced Horakhty to take me for a walk," Yugi smirked.

"No way…?"

Yugi nodded. They both cackled.

"Holy shit! What a dumb fuck!" Jou hollered into his forearms.

"He's so…" Yugi rolled his eyes trying to fathom the word. "He's just…he wants to throw me over a white horse or something. I can't take the pity shit."

"Power to him," Jou chuckled, "seems like a nice guy. Scary good, republican sure, but kind of decent."

"Siding with the enemy?"

"Fuck no. I ain't getting between you and Mr Bullseye. I don't care if he's Mother _flipping _Theresa"

"Smartest thing you've said all year," Yugi inclined his chin, dipping his hand in his pocket. "Grab a drink on me."

"Thanks," the blonde accepted generously, "I'm wasted."

* * *

(Track- "Gaslight Reprise" Emilie Autumn)

Yugi was buzzed, still wind chilled, and if it was anyone else he was sneaking upon he would've known lightening his steps was enough to keep them out cold. Not Sennen however so bottling his thrill Yugi honed years of skills to creep barefoot from the sliding hidden door in the wardrobe to the Emperor's bed with his pockets heavy.

Sennen had sprawled on his back, spine outstretched, which would've made slipping under the sheets against him easier especially since the atmosphere was so light. Yugi didn't have that eerie backward chill he had sometimes in this room, round the fireplace, that he was being watched while they touched. Peeling back the blanket half-heartedly Yugi slid in, still tight in his pants and the shirt, to run his hand along Sennen's chest and leaning into his side pepper his cheek bone.

"_Hnum_…"

It was two am and after awhile of playing Daddy overprotective Sennen was so very slack to Yugi's nuzzling that he hardly really stirred. The instincts in Sennen, from military practice, were subdued under a doughy level of domesticity that lulled him into a sense of security. Sennen had triggers. Yugi was sure if he bumped him right Sennen would pin him before the Emperor even realized he was conscious but those same skills were nullified by the identification of Yugi as friend rather than foe.

Mistake number one right there.

Yugi kissed the alcove of his jaw, leg cocking round the man's broad hips and muffling the Emperor's sleeping face leant into his lips. Yugi's hands trailed, pattering, down his arms and, smoothing and kissing, rearranged them.

"_Nuhum,_" Sennen mumbled, nose brushing into Yugi's in unknowing recognition of the smaller body's warmth. The Emperor's fingers lacing, bare, with his as the pilot pressed a yielding pair of lips to the corner of Yami's mouth.

_Szzzck-click_.

Yami mumbled again, stirred a little more and shifting Yugi rolled his weight across to straddle the Emperor's hips, careful to keep them both under the snug muddled folds of the blankets. Yugi cupped his face, stroked his neck, licked the lobe of his ear and sighing very slowly Sennen started to wake properly to the coaxing. He purred, apparently quite pleased with the lavishness, and motioned, elbows rising, to take Yugi in his arms.

_Clank-yank_.

Yami blinked groggily, arms tugging on reflex and only then did he really start to hit the hard edge of consciousness. Yugi grinned.

It was so worth mugging that cop.

"Wha…?" Yami landed ashore in the world of the living, tugging uselessly at his arms and Yugi had to bite his lip not to let the exhale coming out harsh through his nose turn into an all out giggle. "Yugi? What did you-?"

"Surprise," he purred, stroking the Emperor's cheek as he leant to lick the alcove of his jaw. "Borrowed some handcuffs from a friend."

"Take them off," he grunted through a growl, yanking his wrists.

Yugi snorted, rolling his eyes in the darkness, hips flexing his weight onto his knees atop the Emperor.

"You think I'm going to bite your dick off or something?" He was disappointed plainly. He'd kept his hands so gentle, no nails and everything. "Come on for Christ's sake…"

Grumbling his hand darted into his pocket for the key and catching the sound of his own voice in his throat Sennen stumbled over a protest.

"Ah…I…_pfft,_" he struggled for the words and glancing up through his fringe Yugi half made out Yami's face in the light. Sennen sighed, shoulders slackening, trying to raise his skull to pluck his lips beckoningly. Yugi consented to a brief, tingling, kiss before the Emperor slumped back. "Never mind."

Yugi lost the strength in his thighs, his throat dried.

"You…" He felt like a little kid suddenly instead of a brazen conqueror. "You sure…?"

"Hmm," Yami rolled his hips up languidly, forgivingly or appealingly perhaps. "I'm sure."

Permission, trust, stupid things that highlighted how much of a game their games really were…Yugi faltered but slackening into Sennen plied against him for some kind of comfort, though he'd never ask for it, with a procession of subtle kisses. Yugi just wanted to know he could take power for a little while like Yami had claimed it from him in the start. He just wanted to have free roam to touch him for a while like he wanted to.

Yami let him.

Yugi broke off to kiss his down his clavicle, across his torso, hands dragging down between them to card along the bones of his groin between Yugi's straddling thighs. Coarse hair tangling between his fingers Yugi contorted himself on his hunches to nip at a pectoral while his fingers trailed over the half-hard tip of Yami's arousal.

"_Hmm_," a sigh in, Sennen readjusted and tilting his head Yugi kissed the underside of his jaw. "Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to able to cum for a while yet?"

"Because what fun would that be?" Yugi smirked lightly, fingers squeezing languidly through a stroke.

* * *

1 Shout out to Zambino for the insignia idea!  
2 Yami noted Heba with a last name this chapter; Heba Bound.  
3 There's a ridiculous load of Heba information this chapter; in the Mahado scene, in the baby scene, in Jou's party, in the final handcuff scene… See if you can spot all the details!

**Next Time:** the palace gets darker, Yugi and the Knights face a new republican task force, and after bringing the house down Atem and Yugi have the shouting match you've all been waiting for.


	18. Chapter 18

Puzzleshippers beware our dark horse is back in the race~

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN  
(Track- "Davy Jones Music Box with Rain")

Yugi was having that nightmare again he convinced himself. He buried into the bed and played possum with the blankets bunched up round his head. Peaking out barely, taking steady soldier breaths, as transformed into something non-human Yami lurched awkwardly from the mattress. He rocked onto his feet, jerking and nearly clumsy, and dragging his feet slowly started to walk away.

Just a dream.

Just a dream.

Yugi watched through the gap and didn't even think to follow. He could taste his instincts in the back of his throat. There were guards, there were cameras in the hallway, if anything happened, if this _was_ real then there were plenty of better equipped men to deal with Sennen.

The Emperor shifted, Yugi could see his shadow, hear him breathing and slipping through an open door into one of the adjoining rooms in the Empress's quarters Yami disappeared from view. Yugi didn't move. It didn't feel human. The air was tangled wrong. That thing, that way it breathed, wasn't Yami. Yugi was trapped in a nightmare from his childhood that was so real it terrified him.

_Click_.

In the next room a light went on. A desk lamp of some description and burrowed still Yugi took an uneasy breath. _Don't fucking move_.

"Yugi," he just heard it, it was a sigh above a whisper followed by the sound of slumping and creaking he associated with the straining of a chair. He had this terrible image of Yami's body on the arm rests like a perched gargoyle in his mind's eye.

"Yugi come here…" Yami trilled sweetly.

He didn't breathe. He squeezed the blankets in tighter, knuckling down into lush non-existence.

"Honey," the tilting of the voice called to him appealingly, and even that didn't sound quite like Yami, didn't sound right or human. "No baby…?" It laughed, sighed, Yugi took tiny breaths.

Yugi buried his face. Breathe. Air. _Don't move. Don't move. It won't touch you. Don't move_.

_Click_.

The light in the other room went off.

Yugi didn't dare open his eyes.

* * *

(Track- Kingdom Hearts; Birth By Sleep "Destiny Islands")

In the morning he woke to the same old. Dazed and aching from his own stiffness as Yami Sennen stirred in the bed beside him, arms unlacing from Yugi, to fondle the blaring alarm clock heralding in the morning. Yugi mumbled, groaning, he hated that dream.

It_ was_ a dream. It had to be.

Yami sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the hollows of his eyes, hand drifting back to pat his hip.

"Up," he yawned, squeezing the bone of Yugi's hip through the blanket softly. "Deploy today."

"Hmm…" Yugi twisted under the sheets. No. Too tired.

"Oh," Yami moaned withdrawing his hands to rub his own shoulders, "you have to stop kicking me in your sleep child."

"You've got to stop holding me so tight," he argued dumbly.

"Some things aren't possible." Yami pulled himself onto the bed again, leaning over him on his arms to peel at the blanket and kiss at his face enticing Yugi to unfurl into him. "I'll see you when you get back from the operation."

"Hopefully with Horakhty's skull," Yugi joked through a yawn.

"Yes," the Emperor brushed distantly at his hair, "something like that." Another firm, nearly wet, kiss to his cheeks which Yugi caught on his lips with a tilt of the chin. "Be good. If you're captured again I am putting you in a tower for the rest of your life."

"Hmm," the pilot snorted it off, kissing. "You can't win the war without me."

"I would find a way." Yami threatened into his ear with surprising, whispered, tension and heat. It rasped: _take it seriously. He means it_.

* * *

(Track- Yugi's POV Town Hall Steps "Disco" OR Atem's POV Hilary Duff feat Prophet "Reach Out")

Luminesce Catch was another border zone typically. Rather, however, than meet the enemy at the bases on either side the Republicans tried to hold the actual international line by forcing hostilities to take place parallel to the _giant motherfucking canyon_ that ran from over one side of the border to the other. The canyon was a sharp couple of storeys straight down and, while top side of the cliff the battle plain was solid rock shelf, down the canyon was a whole other world of thick river veined forestation that stretched for at least two clicks.

Taking troops through the canyon didn't strategically work. Pegasus had tried it and the Imperials had sat on the top shooting down at them or had waited for them at the end where the land sloped up to the plane. Sennen had just had to sit back eating Cheetos to make that strategy work. Yugi hadn't even had to move. Likewise however both sides fighting in the canyon was fucking suicidal. Too thick, too crowded, too messy for any kind of strategic combat outside guerrilla warfare which wasn't going to take any border space either side could hold.

So they fought on the boring rock plain along the border which was flat and empty and fucked up from so much raw artillery. Nowhere to hide here. Problem with fighting near the edge of the canyon was that Yugi, to his delight, tended to push people down it.

Actually that was only a problem for everyone else so suddenly Yugi didn't care.

Just four on four though?

The Bohemians were getting ballsy. That or, more likely, they were running out of money and resources. Yugi's screen flared and a moment later Horakhty's cockpit cam feed came up in his centre screen.

"_Yugi,_" he almost tipped his hat.

"Atem," he drawled.

"_Nice day,"_ the Republican sassed.

"To get your brains blown out? It sure is." Yugi grinned. "Who are your friends Horakhty?"

"_Motou, Ryuji, Katsuya, Hitoro,"_ Atem nodded cocking his chin. _"Meet my new team: Bakura and Malik and Rishid the Ishtar brothers._

"I'll be sure to send you all back a complete set then." Yugi leant into the handles of his control panel. "I hope you don't think this is going to be as easy as it was last time kiddo. _Let's show em boys!"  
_  
"_Deploy!_" Atem countered cam feed flickering dead. No more pleasantries. This was business.

It took Yugi one gesture to flick to Imperial frequency and start barking orders.

"Scatter! Show me how they move!" Yugi snapped.

"_Yes Sir!_" Three eager knights chorused back.

_Let's see how good your toys are Horakhty_. If it was anyone else Yugi wouldn't have hesitated to rip into them but Horakhty wasn't just going to come out here unarmed which meant Yugi wanted to see what these little spitfires were up to. His knights however had months behind them working under Yugi, they knew what to do, they knew how to hug his shadow and dodge his fire. How about Atem's backup? Could they handle themselves?

The electric pulse laser pinged.

Yugi hit the rollers hard and slid between them to spin off firing the beam.

_"Holy shit!_" The littlest of Atem's brats, one of the Ishtars, freaked.

_Yeah, don't know what a real pilot can do do you? _Yugi grinned. Atem pushed under the spray of the beam, he was used to being on the receiving end, and Yugi had no intention of laying easy on him today. It was best to keep Atem busy while Yugi used the rest of his cams to pick up the movement of the hero's teammates.

The first fault was that the bigger Ishtar, Rishid, was covering the youngest, Malik, with his bigger rig. The laser pinged, Yugi fired in the opposite direction and his boys scattered. Sure enough however Rishid went to force Malik the last of the way out of the line of the shot. They had a martyr. Yugi was going to exploit the _crap _out of that gap.

Atem had his sword out, Yugi darted, and they danced. The knights kept making lunges and firing simple shots at Atem's boys round the centre of the action so Yugi could suck it all up. He fired the next blast over Atem's shoulder to Bakura. Now that one was sharp, he darted and tried to come up on Yugi's back for an ambush. It would've worked if Yugi hadn't scared him off with the electric claws._ Hmm_…_how well can you predict crazy Bakura?_

"Honda! Otogi! Crowd the little one!" Yugi ordered. "Jou hug Bakura! Let loose!"

"_Yes Sir!_"

"Atem's mine."

They split asunder like a bag of snakes. The Republicans tried to bunch the group back together but with their orders the knights were quick to disperse them across the field. No more warm ups.

Yugi started hounding down on Atem, making him back up, while the laser kept them at distance. Atem couldn't reach him with that sword without getting laser to the _face_. Likewise however Yugi had to shepherd the Republican round to keep him cut off from trying to reconvene with his comrades. Yugi wasn't having any of that. Atem's kids couldn't stand on their own apparently. Sure, maybe while Yugi had been prisoner they'd held their own against his lesser knights but Yugi changed the chemistry of entire wars and even odds meant this was all down to skill. Atem's teammates might be promising but there were nothing without him. Horakhty had all the legendary promise and once Yugi cut off that tap…

"_Fuck!_" Bakura cackled breathlessly over the general radio.

Yugi smirked. Yeah the cracks were starting to show. Bakura might be good but he wasn't perfect; memory, details, complex patters… he had them at odd angles Yugi sensed. Now Jou on the other hand had no pattern when you got him in close knit combat. Jou didn't think about the next move, he just flailed gracefully, so Bakura had nothing to play off, nothing to covertly exploit. Yugi had it. He had him pinned.

As for the Ishtars, well, the brothers worked well but it was plainly skewed. The little one was reckless and the big one was sacrificial. Honda and Otogi would rip the big one up with Rishid's own help in the matter and then pick little Malik dry.

As for Atem…

No more bullshit.

"_Hey Katsuya!_" Bakura pestered. _"How much those fucks pay you?"_

"Shit loads!" Jou laughed. "What's wrong? On the wrong side?"

"_Not even close Mutt!_"

"Bring it!"

Yugi rolled his eyes. Trash talk was the staple of every soldier regardless of age or origin but Yugi had bigger, better, fish to fry than his blonde. Atem wasn't giving him an inch but that said Atem was the one spiralling back. Yugi wasn't letting go. Yugi was going to _win_. Yugi wasn't losing again. Never again.

They were too good though. Atem had come along in spades. Horakhty knew his moves too well, like Yugi knew his, they were playing off each other in a feedback loop Yugi needed to break. Atem was zoned, they both were, focused. Yugi hissed low. Win. _Win_. _Bite him_.

He'd told Sennen he would win.

He had to.

Just in case…

Yugi couldn't afford to keep losing. It was horrid for his chemistry. His whole body riled against it. It went against every synapse. They'd raised him to win. The Underground couldn't be for nothing.

"_Shit!_" Atem dodged.

Yugi was speeding up. He threw himself into the system. Thoughts started running on repeat as he sunk. The disembodied feeling of the machine became an extension of him. Response levels from the suit read out started rising. _Almost there._ Yugi pushed. _Come on_…

Can't lose-

Underground worth it-

"_Heart rate elevated._" The AI chimed a warning, little red pop-up obscuring his right camera feed.

"Fuck off!" Yugi grunted round it.

He could do this. Atem faltered in his footing- _Yes! _Yugi growled through a purr, pushed, and exploited the gap. -_Win_. _The Underground_- Yugi flicked his wrists, no trace of carpal tunnel, honed with the machine- _the Underground_- the prompts, the mech commands, weren't coming up fast enough. The laser didn't even seem to be charging as fast as Yugi wanted it to.

"_Heart rate dangerous._" The AI warned.

"Shut up!" Yugi snapped.

The laser cut through the rock. Yugi was a beast with a bone coming down hard on Atem. No reprise, no let up, only victory. He wasn't stopping. He was in his high spot. That elusive space he rarely had to reach these days where he was totally at Zen.

"_System overload: proximity warning._"

"Fucking stupid piece of shit!" _Keep up, just a little more, stay with me just another second_-

"_EPL overheating._"

"Shit!" The laser. Yugi switched to artillery but didn't stop for a second. Atem cut, tried to reflect the ammunition and it was getting close, knitted, tight, nearly-

Yugi's body was constricting oxygen. He was aware of everything. Not so much his body but the field, the machine, Atem, the screens. He wasn't sweating. He was at high point. Everything else faded into extremit-

_CRAZZZZZZZCK_

"_Fuck!_" Atem's voice filled the general radio.

They were on the edge of the rock shelf, just above the canyon and…

The shelf had just given out. Yugi had pushed nature back. Solid rock rumbled under them at the edge, had cracked, started slipping. Yugi pushed back on the rollers. Atem attempted to do the same. _Shitshitshit!_ Three hundred meter drop!

It was giving out to fast, nearly a land slide at the edge. The others were back safe but Yugi could hear them shrieking though he was _way_ too busy to pay any attention. The ground was giving, going, trembling back and they scrambled but-

Falling! _Fuck!_

Yugi made a constricted sound in his throat. The mech slipped back, lost footing, and he and Atem were free falling down the drop.

* * *

(Track- Harry Potter Score "Mischief Managed")

"_Aaah_ _fuck_…" Yugi groaned in his harness, fingers of one hand pattering gentle over his temple with a hiss. He had a cut but he was alright.

The cockpit hadn't given in. The screens were almost all intact. The systems blared at him and groaning Yugi hung suspended in his harness still gripping the handles with his feet on the pedals. He could everything, he could see, he panted. Shit. The mech must've rolled. He coughed. Dust had infiltrated the vents in the process but he knew everything was almost together.

He held his handles with one hand and pressed his screen with the other hand, fingers pattering, on the touch display of the plasma HD. Okay… 82% integrity, all the limbs intact, vents working, the suit link up to the system was functioning, safety protocols were still off (Yugi was beginning to think he needed to start turning them on)… everything was there. Okay. Next.

He pattered the system brought up radio, radar and Nav. They'd fallen down into the catchment of the canyon. Atem's rig was showing up on radar just a meter or two away but what condition it was in was uncertain because Yugi's external camera couldn't twist that way. He panted still, trying to gather his breath. The boys were up on the top shelf with the rest of Atem's crew. They all seemed there. All six blips. Yugi heaved, trying to gather himself, resting for a moment in the hold of the straps. Okay, shit, move…

"Hey!" He croaked on radio. "Anyone read me?"

"Yug!" Jou screeched.

"_We read ya Motou_," little Ishtar piped, "_where's Atem?_"

"Down here dumbfuck that's how gravity works," Yugi snapped. "I don't know if he's clear."

"You okay?" Otogi interjected.

"I'm fine." Yugi sighed. "Listen up the whole bleeding lot of you. Temp ceasefire in effect calling in now. Go back to base. I'm going to retrieve Atem. We'll have to trek it back up the canyon. If he's alive we'll come up the Imperial side. Meet us in forty eight for pick up if you want your Bohemian handed over peacefully."

"_Bring him up on the Republican side of the border!_" Malik argued vengefully.

"Don't fucking argue or I won't bring him up at all!" Yugi hissed. "Now all of you fuck off!"

"_Rodger sir yes sir!_" His knights covered.

"Ya hear me blues?"

"_We cover Motou,_" Bakura interceded on the Bohemian behalf. "_We'll check in in forty eight._"

"Good." Least one of them had some brains.

Yugi switched off everything and shuffled his mech off the rubble. Atem, if he was alive, was safest in his cockpit and Yugi had to move himself off the rubble in case the rest of the rock decided to come down on top of them. Finally on grass he started charging down the mech and undid the cockpit hatch. He pulled himself down and hand over his brow scoped behind him. The sun was blaring down unobscured by the trees they'd just crushed nearly burning the back of his hand.

Horakhty's mech looked alright.

Yugi meandered briskly down from his rig and then up the rocks towards the Bohemian's. If he was injured Yugi was so not providing medical. Right…?

"Horakhty?" He called exploratory as he made it up the rubble. "Hey! Horakhty! You hear me?"

Nothing, sighing tightly, Yugi ambled up closer.

"Horakhty!" He reached the mech and kicked the outside of the metal to try and get some kind of response. If the hero was injured in there he could still hear Yugi. "You alive? Hey! Answer me!"

Yugi kicked, waited, nothing…

_Fuck_.

Yugi hefted himself up the mech rig trying to find the cockpit hatch. _Fuck fuck_. He reached it but couldn't find a seam in the metal to exploit. How did he open this thing? He found the tiny maintenance hatch and flipping it up found a key pad. There had to be an emergency code to open this thing…he pounded his fingers, feet in the grooves of the machine to keep him steady, leaning onto one hand as he attacked the keyboard with another. _Open damn it!_

"BOO!" The machine's external speakers blared suddenly.

"_Ehey!_"

Yugi squealed, shrieked really, and losing his footing fell back onto his ass on the crumbled rock which caught him. Dust plumed up and hacking Yugi coughed through it.

The mech hatch on the EY-3 opened internally and swinging it open Atem leant out laughing his blackened little ass off. Perfectly healthy.

"Not fucking funny!" Yugi hollered viciously though his hacks.

"That was beautiful!" Atem laughed folding his arms over the edge of the metal to cackle into his forearms. "Oh God!"

"_Not funny!_"

"Well that's what you get for punching me!" Atem laughed extending his index finger accusatorially. "Karma's a bitch, ain't it?"

"Oh shut up!" Yugi hissed.

"Heh, oh walk it off," Atem teased hauling himself out of the cockpit to lower himself onto the ground. His boots gritted the dirt and offering his arms Atem extended his hands to Yugi.

Glowering Yugi slapped his fingers hard, making Atem lean back and pushing pulled himself up. He patted down his suit, throat mauled, and rubbed all the wrong way by his own self averted eye contact.

"Sorry," Atem chuckled, "I couldn't resist. Are you okay?"

_"M'_fine," Yugi snapped.

"Heard you on the radio to the others," the sneaky fuck revealed, "your mech good to get moving right away?"

"Yeah. You?" He grunted sourly.

"Sure," Atem smiled, "might need your help to clean some of this shit off it though. I'm kind of packed in."

"Do it yourself," Yugi challenged.

"Hey," the Republican soothed extending his hand toward him, "it was a joke. Relax. You've done worse."

"_Humph_," he snorted darkly.

"I'm sorry," Atem smiled, "what? Did I scare you that bad?"

"Oh don't be stupid," Yugi chided. "The fuck would I care if you were dying?"

"Cause unless it's directly your fault you won't get your glorious win, eh?" He winked.

Yugi was taken aback but grumbling refused to admit to it.

* * *

(Track- "Carry On my Wayward Son" violin version)

They spent the day trudging through the trees along the river working their way through the canyon back towards the slope up into imperial territory where Atem's unit assured them on the radio, when they came back into range, that they would be camping. It was painfully slow progress and while the trees obscured the intense heat it did nothing for the burn of the sand which had worked its way under Yugi's suit onto his skin. Being rocked round like that without injury was exceptional good luck but he was aching for a shower. Atem wanted a hamburger apparently he informed uselessly.

Around four Yugi's sat phone started buzzing in the holster at his hip. Oh joy.

"Turning off sound," Yugi grunted to Atem as he pressed the screen, "got a call."

"_Send the big wigs my love Firecracker,"_ Atem joked.

Fucking smart ass. Yugi killed the speakers, leaving himself in the din of silence of his own cockpit as he fumbled the phone into his hand. He pressed it against his ear, held it in place with his shoulder, and using both hands tried to keep the mech moving through the undergrowth.

"Motou here," he grunted.

"You fell off a _cliff_." Yami snapped.

"Just a little one," Yugi rolled his eyes, "don't get your panties in a twist."

"How did you fall off a cliff?"

"I blew it up," he grunted unsympathetically. "Don't you have something better to be doing?"

"I swear…" The Emperor moaned and Yugi could nearly see him burying his face in his palm. "What am I supposed to do with you?"

"Let me work," Yugi snorted, "get Mahado to give you the details. Ryuji's sending him the report. I'm busy."

"Is Horakhty dead?"

"Not yet," he hissed, eyes darting across the screens before him to Atem's mech hauling ass beside him. "I can't fight down here."

"You have a _Carte Blanche_ to take him out inappropriately if you can."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That if he gives you a chance to strangle him in his sleep tonight," Yami hinted smoothly, "you have my permission, encouragement actually, to proceed."

Yugi stiffened, eyes trailing over the cameras.

A worthy opponent, a worthy man, how would Yugi like to die? To be snuffed out?

No, not like that…

"I…" He grunted through his nose. "Yeah, whatever, that's boring."

"Have it your way," Yami sighed absently.

"Later," Yugi dismissed, pulling the phone into his hand. He couldn't…

"Yu-"

He hung up, shoving the plastic back into his holster, none of that. Yugi didn't kill people in their beds. Yugi didn't sneak around. It was the last piece of integrity he had to hold for himself. The last bit of pride he could legitimately scrounge. Yami just didn't get that did he? He pursed his lips. Today sucked. He was uncomfortable in his bones. Sickened. He steadied.

* * *

(Track- "Davy Jones Music Box with Rain")

Yugi threw his bedroll down in a heap pulling one of the coats from his bag to slip round him. Shit it was cold down here as it got darker, sun leeching away and leaving frigidity under the sounds of the river. Atem played with tarps and tents, yanking them in place round the hunched mechs to make them some kind of shelter for the night _again_. Why was this the second time Yugi was stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere with this douche? Atem was good with the rope work though must've spent most of his bumpkin childhood camping.

Yugi kicked out the dirt to dig them a fire pit for the night stacking branches and fondling round his bag for survival shit: tinder, lighte- _ouch_, fucking splinter…

Yugi stuck the tip of his thumb in his mouth and pulled with his teeth spitting the wood out. Ick.

Atem exhaled heartily, jacket round the waist of his gold-rippled combat suit, ducking under the cover he'd created to slink inside. He looked so pleased with himself it was insufferable.

"Looking good," he grinned.

"Oh shut your face," Yugi dismissed flippantly.

There was a second's pause, air hissing on impact. Atem recoiled and then, as if he'd been struck, eased his shoulders back into place.

"Jesus," he sighed under his breath, one rough hand sullenly on his hip. "What happened to you today? You're in an even fouler mood than usual."

The whole question was so…_sitcom_.

This was so little house on the prairie Yugi was going to puke. Atem talked like they were too familiar. Worse some part of him was natively, habitually, upset by some detail not quite physical or obvious. The cabin fever of this, the impression of being left alone, stuck, face to face with Atem Horakhty was…

Yugi's stomach twisted. He was like a little boy left at day care too long one afternoon as the thunder clouds amassed. He thought he could handle anything, nothing touched him, nothing reached him but sleepless and vaguely paranoid that something cloud splitting was about to come out of Atem's lips he felt his venom thicken. Escape was priority one, avoidance priority two because this guy...

"You," he decided, "you're pissing me off. So you can fucking _stop it_."

"Stop _what?_" He scoffed. "The hell am I doing?"

"Acting all fucking nice!" Yugi spat, calamitous. "I get it, you're cute! Roll over and die!"

"_Fuck_," Atem moaned, scraping his hand long his face to fist angrily in his hair. "Can you really not take anyone being nice to you for three seconds?"

Atem wasn't nice.

Atem Horakhty was sandpaper on two decades of repressed childhood trauma.

Yugi wanted to cauterise every conversation he'd ever had with this outlier scum-toss from his memory. He wanted to forget this spaztard existed. He wanted to bury Atem permanently. He wanted him to_ shut up_. Everything was so perfectly settle into puzzle piece places before Atem Horakhty came to kick Yugi's toys up.

It was bad enough he'd had something like three _fucking_ flashbacks to that stupid simulation rig. He was not putting up with this now, not after those nightmares, not after an agonizing flicker of standard grade compassion had gone through Yugi like the ghost of Christmas past this morning. Atem Horakhty made him feel like he was withering up to graveyard sludge inside. Atem Horakhty made him feel deliriously, unbearably,_ conscious_. Atem Horakhty brought Yugi's dazed, half watched world into ear splitting, ringing, focus and he didn't have the human systems to handle it. He didn't_ need_ them.

"I'm going to _kill you._" He rasped out slowly for emphasis lips pulling back over his teeth. "What part of that don't you still get? Because I'm getting _so sick _of your fake sweeties that I'm about three heartbeats from cracking your skull open you insufferable little fuckwit!"

Hair trigger hysteria was up in arms inside Yugi fighting Horakhty infection. He was going to bubble over any second, burst, and do something horrible.

Atem didn't appear able to consolidate the nasty heat solidified in Yugi's face. Everything about him went hard in a way totally uncommon and unexperienced. Atem Horakhty stood straighter, that full six-something height of his, all broad shoulders and stern jaw line. Mad. Atem Horakhty mad…? The whole suggestion didn't compute.

He didn't even bother to give the appearance of a tremor as he huffed, stallion-esque, through his nostrils.

"I'm not fake." The Bohemian challenged. "Not to you and not to anyone. I don't_ need_ to be."

Yugi wavered, fingers clenched so tight he could feel his nails in his palms slicing.

"I like who I am," Atem continued calmer, "and I'm sorry if someone trying to help offends you so much. I'm sorry that no that no one's obviously ever tried but you can keep biting on your hairpin trigger all day cause I'm _not _backing off."

"Who do you think you are?" He hissed. "What do you think you're going to do? Make it all better? Kill me with kindness?"

Yugi sneered, half laughed and suddenly he was up on his feet prowling in, sauntering, predatorily closer. He was going to go for the neck.

"You really think that'll work corn muncher?" He rasped. "That I'm just going to _melt_ one day for your little white horse routine you _fucking sap?_"

"You want to know what I _really_ think?" Atem snorted without ever wavering back in Yugi's approach.

"Oh please," Yugi scoffed, "enlighten me."

"I think you're real pissed because you're scared. You don't know what to do when someone genuinely wants to help you so you get mad." He whispered thickly. "You know there's something actually, deeply, disturbed in you. Now I don't know who fucked you up when you were little, I don't know who gave up on you, but I got a headline for you: I don't care. I've got it in my head now that I'm not giving this up. Cause someone needs to fight for you, if you won't, and I'm just _stupid _enough for the two of us."

"_What?_" Yugi withered, nails extending and hands curling in as he bent furiously on his knees almost in a seizure. "What's the point? There's nothing to save you _moron!_ I'm gone! It's over! You're about twenty years too late to the party!"

"No, you're not," he shot back dismissively. "I've seen it. You can yell at me all day but I've seen you hiding in there behind all _this_ shit."

He gestured over the furious imperial but wasn't finished.

"You have a sense of honour you hide behind some claim at being a show pony. You even have a sense of gratitude. That's why you never really hurt me after I help you. Not in the cave and not in the med bay. You know why? Cause under _this_ there's actually a human being _begging_ for someone to come and get him. So," Atem shrugged, "here I am."

He spread his arms, daft, resilient and careless and Yugi nearly shot him but was too busy trying not to scream.

"I don't like you," Yugi spat stubbornly, "you hear me? I don't need your fucking pity and I don't need you. I don't need anyone. You're _projecting._"

"No." Atem returned simply, plainly resolutely unbreakable and immovable.

Yugi inched in, burning, and stubborn as sin neither of them would flinch. The tremors were up. The ground felt like it should've been shaking under them because the swell, the fusion, of all the electricity was enough to break sensors.

"One day," Atem murmured, "you're going to want to talk about whatever happened and I'm going to be here because you can be _sweet_. You're in there. I see you. When you nearly cry, when you dance like a spaz in simulation drills, when you scream at me from somewhere inside… I can see you Yugi Motou. I might not have much but you ain't fooling me."

…

_Bullseye_.

"You really think-" Yugi swallowed. '_You're that smart?_' was on the tip of his tongue but withered when halfway through the pilot had to take a breath.

He couldn't get the next sentence out.

He tried, he did, to pin his shoulders from twitching. Nails dug into his palm all over, restrained from violence he told himself but then there was a slice inside that suggested otherwise.

_God, just shut up! _

Yugi's breath rattled in his chest and he found Atem's eyes properly. It stung. _I don't need you. _It argued._ I don't need Yami. I don't need anyone_. It was angry, insistent, but the words wouldn't flow out because something in the mental track, the connection, was broken. _Go away. Give up. Go away. I want everyone to leave me alone. I want to cease to exist. Aren't you people done torturing me yet? Can't I have some peace?_

Atem held them there, wouldn't budge a fraction of his spine or a head on his hair away from Yugi's glower that was faltering, crumbling, like an unstable structure. Instead, as the Imperial's shoulders bounced under his breath with another uneven inhale, Atem's fingers reached for him.

Yugi saw the hand but it didn't really sink in till it touched the curve of his elbow by his side. He flinched wrenching it back and Atem's fingers idled in the air but never drew back. Yugi… Yugi's posture slackened fractionally, couldn't fight easing somehow, at the lack of response and when he eased his arm fell back into place, into reach, Atem's fingers just lulling on the outside of the curve.

Atem squeezed, just a hair, at the bend under his palm as if Yugi were some frightened, vicious, animal and they stood perfectly still for a moment. Yugi…he just… he found air settled more gently in him…and… Reaching Atem's twin hand took Yugi's opposing elbow just as brushing and vague.

* * *

1 I'm sure we all expected that to go differently but this chapter Atem Horakhty revealed: he's not naïve. He's just been resting up.  
2 I think some of you are going to be happy (or not) and I think the rest are going to try to build a time machine before next week.

**Next Time**: Atem makes contact, two confessions and a promise, Yugi Motou makes his first real appearance, something goes right during the night and something goes terribly wrong in the morning when Yami misunderstands.


	19. Chapter 19

_Foreword: _  
Blindshippers- don't dance too loudly, you'll wake the neighbours.

* * *

CHAPTER NINETEEN  
(Track- Vocaloid "Magnet" violin version)

Atem swept him a little closer trepidatiously. Atem was built, lean muscle toned from use, but he was totally, consolingly, gentle. Yugi had this realization that if he snapped once, just once, the Republican would sizzle back immediately. A gentleman yet not in the same way Yami was. He was rougher, dirtier, poorer, but somehow Atem was purer than either of them. He was so… Yugi didn't know what to do…he just leant in, let Atem oh so delicately take his hands and settle them on his clavicle.

The Bohemian stepped closer, their navel's almost brushed, Atem's hands moved from his elbows to his waist. Slung hesitantly round him like that the pilot was nearly all country bumpkin, farm boy, and Yugi couldn't even contemplate looking away. His limbs locked. He forgot for a second who he was, the _supposed to_'s of his status, and swallowing carefully Atem struck up the guts to bring one tender hand to Yugi's face.

Yugi's lips twitched askew, the almost imperceptible flinch of a wild animal, but then the tingle became the warmth of human skin.

Atem smelt like bread, like sweat, like ancient dust and he held Yugi's cheek in his palm and brought them together not to kiss presumptively but to brush their foreheads. He sighed, throat tight, and Yugi's lids narrowing uncertainly Atem's nose rubbed at Yugi's. Yugi found his eyes shut at the impact of the fleeting touch and turning his face the cold tip of cartilage ran along to adore the curve of his cheekbone in half a breath.

It was just…it was sincere. Atem carried something completely well intentioned in the tenderness. Atem was, Yugi knew somehow, happy just to hold him and he… Yugi felt his eyes close. His arms slid up round the republican's shoulders and falling in the pilot's head slumped on Atem's shoulder. The Bohemian was closer to his height than Yami, younger and virile in a way his cynical Emperor wasn't. Yugi's force skipped out of his knees and into the Bohemian. The next breath came softly and Yugi felt like a fool but Atem_ glowed_.

Atem held his cheek still, fingers wandering into his hair to coil gingerly, holding him. Till resting his whole weight into the man Yugi felt something give up inside him. The wild animal died. He… this…

There was a kind of long awaited quietness in Yugi's head. The rain lushed over the tarps almost like tides on the shoreline and there was an equally forgotten sensation; safety.

Finally…

_Safe_.

He _believed_ it.

In a way Yugi had never believed anything, not God or mechanics, he believed that with Atem he had that most crucial thing. For a glimmer, a brief instance, he had Yugi Motou's personal Holy Grail. He sensed maybe fantastically that with Atem everything was safe. He was safe. In his brick walled life behind his backdoor Yugi's whole future felt as if could be mapped somehow from a shoestring and just…

No. Nono… Why this…? Why now…? He'd been fighting this so well, running without air…

Yugi twisted his face into the pilot's clavicle and Atem squeezed him gently. It was like lightening when those safe arms tightened.

"It's okay," Atem promised, and Yugi almost cried.

It was the final straw. This was why Yugi hated him so much (so _so_ much). Atem made him feel wrong, silly, ridiculous things that weren't in Yugi's nature. Yugi _loved_ Yami. He _did_, he confessed outright, but they were both strange broken things who appealed to each other's eccentricity. Atem sung in the same way to something else inside Yugi, some fledgling spirit of humanity, hope, ancient, before memory…it…

Yugi must've made a sound.

"It's okay," Atem swore, rocking them.

Yugi didn't feel like a child clustered up into the arms of an adult like he did, wonderfully, with Yami. This was a man, his age, holding him in this weird equal way like a… His mind fell over a _h _and a_ f _sound… Atem would…wouldn't he…?

Yugi lost all weight, he'd lost all resilience, and that was okay. Everything was okay here with this man which was an impossible and treacherous concept but… Fuck, Yugi wanted to be miserable for once or for that seething bitter wound of his to be visible without someone chiding. Oh God, God… _just take me away_… _just you_…

Atem took steady breaths, from a steady heart, and Yugi found himself mimicking his pace of inhalations.

A thought clicked over.

Yugi squeezed, lids forcing apart on the Bohemian's shoulder and swallowed the lump in his throat. Yugi didn't have to tug himself up, rather he just had to look up, and there were Atem's lips and an otherwise friendly face just waiting.

He started it, he knew that, but it was a good, healthy, idea he would admit unwillingly when he brushed his lips into Atem's because the Bohemian would never start without him. Yugi pushed hard but the Republican steeled under his fingers. Not in the normal way of courtly love. Instead pliant, impossibly malleable, Atem let Yugi push and all feathers stroked back with his lips till the acid in Yugi diffused into…

Yugi sighed brokenly. He lost the traction of tension and running the back of his knuckles down his cheek Atem tried to teach him how to be sweet by example. Atem never let go, never stopped holding him, had his back and just- _oh_… this was what love felt like wasn't it? Pure, simple, no conspiracy, no looming secret just a nice, wonderful, man who just wanted to…just… Yugi couldn't push through the thoughts, they tangled up like old violin strings, but his fingers ran over Atem's cheeks and wanted to be kind. He wanted someone to be kind to him.

Wet, brief, ghosting touch dragged for a second as Yugi caught the new rhythm of a lingering kiss. Atem's lips drew back, he nuzzled their noses, and Yugi wasn't at all inclined to open his mouth or move his fingers from tracing the man's scar. He trusted this. He was a fool, worse; a sentimental fool. Yugi was going to get himself kille- No, no he wasn't. That was a lie.

_Shut the fuck up training I'm __busy__. Take a number._

Atem's brief kisses fluttered over his cheek, never really straying improper, and they fell back to brushing their features. Atem smelt glorious. Yugi could almost feel the sand in his pores as one solid hand held the small of his back and its owner loved him perfectly in place.

Yami loved him, surely, but not like this. Yugi didn't think either of them were capable of that. No one had ever-

He watched Bohemian lips part.

"I love you," Atem didn't hesitate, not even for a second and meet Yugi's gaze dead on.

It was like a gunshot.

Yugi was sure his mind literally stopped. His whole life, his whole living memory, no one had ever… No one had ever _just_ loved him. No one ever let him be. There was always an _'if', 'and'_ or _'but_' attached in some stupid contractual form. It wasn't on any level an exaggeration when Yugi said that no one had ever put those three words together for him. No parent, no guardian, no fuck, no lover, no Emperor…

_Yami_ had never said that and neither had Yugi but they'd always tiptoed to implying it. It was the closest Yugi had ever gotten. Now Atem…he _meant_ it. He so sincerely meant it and when Yugi saw him he knew that for all his hopeful white knight bullshit Atem wasn't a fool. Atem was brilliant in his own way. In that ancient, stupendously smart without college degrees, human smart kind of way with the instinct Yugi respected and valued. Atem understood and didn't pretend not to. He _understood_ the situation. Crystal clear.

_You shouldn't_.

Yugi didn't manage to say it but it wafted into his mind. Atem saw the doubt.

"I love you." He repeated seriously and it didn't seem to be only because Atem felt someone had to.

"I…" Yugi was such a moron. Was Atem's brain fever contagious? The butterflies leaping up into his lungs might be. "I…" he was going to cry again. _No, God no, not that. _"I-I…"

"It's okay," he smiled, held him.

"You…" Yugi sighed miserably against his ear, eyes glassy, and buried closer with his nails digging into the Bohemian's shoulder._ Show me how you do it_. "You…." It was tight but there was a grate in Yugi's throat that held him back even though he knew, dreadfully, he was being honest.

Atem crushed him tight without ever hurting, without ever coming close to it, burying his face against Yugi.

"I know," he could feel it somehow Yugi knew. "_I love you."_

It was binding. It wasn't going anywhere. Yugi could try and slaughter him tomorrow and Atem would forgive him. They were fucking monstrous idiots the pair of them. Yugi clutched him and didn't want to let go. How did Atem know he needed to hear it? That someone just loved him for once in his life? Fuckfuck…

Yugi twisted his face up for the snap. He couldn't help it. He needed to lash out and curling his fingers in Atem's hair brought the lip bitingly close. He bruised them into each other, digging his tongue into the Republican's mouth and for a second Atem let him but pushing, insisting, the Bohemian untangled their tongues so Yugi was left with nothing but saliva as Atem shook his head.

"No, Baby no," he nuzzled bitterly into his cheek. "Not like this."

"I…" Yugi hiccupped through a choking sob. The pain lurched free, two decades of it and this wasn't okay. _Make it better_. _Please, I know you can. Someone take me home. _

"Shh," Atem whispered, "just breathe, just breathe…."

_Call me 'Baby' again_. Yugi broke through a cresting sob that had been years coming and hid his face in Atem's neck.

* * *

(Track- Frank Sinatra "Killing me Softly")

Time just sort of melted while Yugi was crying. He wasn't sure what happened but he _sobbed_ till his throat crackled. The republican pulled them down and all muscle but all sympathy at once rocked them on the sprawled bed rolls by the fire with Yugi tight, squeezing, up into his chest. Yugi wondered once or twice if he would break skin and bury himself in the republican's ribcage.

He breathed and eventually Yugi eased, slowly, until back to front with Atem he just lulled with a pair of warm arms unwavering round his middle, a soft voice by his ear and a set of lips that kissed the tear tracks as he hiccupped. He'd never cried that hard but it had been coming from some dark well place before his memory even started. It was all loneliness, horrible loneliness.

Atem's lap was simultaneously…. It was right, so right, but tortuously not enough. Still Yugi couldn't resist another stolen moment to be held in that special, untainted, way. The rain ticked on outside their shelter, a little tarp, tent and mech made cave made in the chasm that Yugi prayed wouldn't flood. Yugi leant back into him. Atem's arms were thick with stolen, bottled, bed-warmth that leeched into Yugi's bones and left him tremulously weak. He could relax but eventually…

"I have to go back." Yugi wouldn't lie, head slumping into the man's shoulder, because staying here like this wasn't a viable option right now.

"I know." Atem promised. "We're going to fight again."

Business as usual would resume tomorrow. It was understood, yet again, that there would be no waiting around. Yugi wasn't jumping ship, couldn't. The bell tolled for them. So why wasn't the republican scared?

"I'll destroy you." He wheezed half in realization because Yugi did break everything eventually.

"I won't let you." Atem swore valiantly. "Trust me. I can stand up to you. You're not going to kill me. You're not getting rid of me till I get a peace treaty."

"Ya- Emperor Sennen won't…" Yugi trailed off.

"I don't care if it's years," he shrugged, then more softly: "and I know. Yami, right?"

Yugi pivoted a fraction in his arms, cocking his chin over his shoulder, found a new untouched place to fill up with stunned bemusement and frowned at the Bohemian.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He whispered.

"You're with the Emperor." Atem concluded brazenly. "I can tell."

"How…?" Yugi twisted, squirming in his lap without ever leaving his arms.

"Saw the way you look at him on the news, little things," Atem shrugged lazily.

Why did even his dialogue seem golden?

"And you still…?" It sunk in deeper to Yugi's conscious. Atem had known. Kissing him, telling him, Atem had known about…_Holy_- Wait, would Yami love him if he knew about…?

"I love you." Atem repeated fearlessly, never wavering, _honest_. "Even if you love Sennen and I don't particularly like him."

"You…you idiot," Yugi slumped miserably into his chest, one arm slinging round his shoulders. How did anyone resist this guy stranded with him? It was sad but if the whole world was like this man then maybe…

"Yeah, maybe," he whispered. Atem accepted himself, wouldn't argue with his own flaws and Yugi paled in the face of his own reflected weakness. Yugi wasn't like that. "It does matter."

"Why are you…?" He fumbled, turning his face into the other's neck and kissed the skin bitterly once.

"I don't know," Atem shrugged, "my mum killed herself when I was little. I saw it. Now I want her to be proud of me. I want her to know the world's a better place than what she left."

"And me…?"

Yugi didn't even have to finish the tripping question.

"From the moment you started yelling at me in the cave at Arch Tree."

_God you fucking horrible, sweet, genius_…

"What…?" Atem paused, sighing, "what happened? What am I missing?" _What happened to you when you were small?_

"I don't want to talk about it now." Yugi sighed. _No. Not now. _"I just want to enjoy this for a minute."

"Okay," he folded weakly, Yugi's thumb tracing his shoulder through the suit. "We need to sleep soon."

Yugi nodded but refused to raise his head. Neither of them wanted to he was sure. Atem's fingers ran up the back of his neck and finding the zipper at the crux of his response suit pulled it down till, sighing, Yugi could feel those worn hands on the bare small of his back and up his spine.

"Come on," Atem prompted gently, "let's get out of these."

Yugi kissed him, wanted more even, because if this was all they had and tomorrow he'd be back to normal then… Atem responded, blunt unkempt nails running through his hair, gooey lips melding into Yugi's. The tepid air hit Yugi's bare back and when the pilot tried gently to run his tongue along the sealed lips Atem consented willingly to dip his tongue into Yugi's mouth. Yugi pursed his lips, they licked, so hungry, and then Atem stopped, untangled, and ceased.

"Bu-"

Atem shook his head and Yugi's complaints died. _Stubborn bastard, what if I kill you before you get your perfect Utopia? What if you don't make it? What if you die and no one ever makes love to me properly?_

Yugi swallowed the bile in his throat, Atem helped them to their feet and without ever peeking over his shoulder the republican let them change. It was so chaste it was foreign in concept to Yugi. Why did Atem want to do this right? Was he worth it? Yugi didn't believe so. He'd never get this again, would he? He snorted, he never was happy long and tomorrow he'd suppress this momentary feeling of realization, epiphany, perfect synchronized reality that assaulted him now. Tomorrow this clarity would be faded and Yugi would be alone in his own head again. Tomorrow Yugi would be ready to die.

Atem pushed everything together musing their bedding up together. Shirtless on his elbow and beckoning Yugi down the Bohemian laced them up together under the military issue supplies. Just for a night, just one, Yugi could fall asleep in his arms. Just for a night Yugi could taste his scent, his insane scent, and trace the comfort of sun darkened, ruddy, skin under his bare forearms. Atem was more muscled than Yugi or Yami. Better equipped and brazenly strong if so shockingly docile. Yugi could nearly see the little dents in his limbs as he flexed. He was a total contrast to the Emperor, to Yugi, and while Yugi would confess he _did_ love Yami…

With Atem he was safe, utterly and perfectly. Something slid into a place Yugi didn't know he had and better still Yugi knew there would be no nightmares about demons or body snatchers or betrayal or laboratories, secrets, and TU. Though perhaps the dreams Atem's scent would induce would be worse: fields, cottages, baskets and babes, homes and futures and sunsets Yugi might never feel on his skin, waves round his ankles…

He let go.

_I want a home._

* * *

(Track- "Safe and Sound" Sam Tsui cover)

He squirmed out of Atem's serene, encompassing, arms halfway through the night with the rain still scampering. His bare toes curled into the grass beside the bedroll, slightly damp, and he could feel the sweat down his thighs.

"_Aoh_…" Yugi groaned, clasping his arms round his middle. The hell? "_Hee_-" another weak, choked little sound, as he squeezed in on himself. What was this? It was like his insides were trying to punch him. Had he gotten bitten by something in the night? "Just my fucking luck."

"Yugi?" Atem murmured, rolling in the sleeping bag he was still tucked in, a half conscious hand falling warm along the small of the pilot's back. "What's wrong Baby?" That was such a beautiful voice. Such an endearment, enticing, if Yugi had been less distracted-

"I…_oh_-" Yugi buried his face between his arms, knees coming towards his chest. He'd never felt anything like this. "I'_a_m- hurts…"

"Hurts?" The Bohemian shuffled up hand trailing towards the pinnacle of his spine. "Where?"

"My stomach," he moaned.

"Anywhere else?"

"No…" He insisted resting into his own weight. "Just hot."

Atem's hand slipped round him, under his fringe, a solid arm weaselling round Yugi's middle to pull him back into the hero.

"You've got a fever," he murmured against his ear, "let's get your shirt up."

"Oh I bet you-_ah_- love that," Yugi grumbled.

"I'm worried something bit you." Atem snorted back dryly, trying gently to heft Yugi back towards him and as the Republican moved onto his knees he attempted to lay Yugi down onto the sleeping bag. "Just hold tight okay?"

"_Hnn_," he complained.

With a little peeling Atem worked Yugi's arms from round his own middle and pushed his shirt up. Warm, calloused, fingers smoothed over his navel prodding gently and squeezing his eyes shut Yugi fought the instinctive urge of his ankles to curl in like he could clamp out the pain himself.

"You look okay," Atem whispered weakly. "Is it tender?"

"Hn," Yugi nodded.

"I don't know what's…" wrong? Of course he didn't. Yugi didn't even know.

Was Yugi broken? It was a possibility his insides had just stopped working. After The Underground fiasco all those years ago Yugi was only half sure his body functioned normally like everyone else's. What if it had just given up the ghost? Still, it hurt, but he didn't feel like he was dying perse.

"Are you allergic to anything?"

"Not that I know," Yugi sighed, letting Atem push back angles of his clothing to try valiantly to find some kind of skin puncture or rash without defiling him in any way. "_Fuck_…"

"It's okay," Atem promised, "I got ya."

"Oh yeah?" Yugi challenged. "What are you going to do Doctor Dumbass?"

"Hey," he chuckled, "at least I'm trying here."

"Why is it every time I see you I almost die?"

"I don't know, why is it every time I see you I end up almost exploding?"

"Cause you can't dodge." Yugi snorted snidely.

"Heh," Atem smiled down to him on his elbow, palm smoothing along his navel.

"_Oh_…"

"What?" Atem went to cringe back worried he'd hurt something.

"Nonono," Yugi insisted, fingers clasping round his wrist tightly as he arched. "Do that. It feels good."

"Feels…?" The Bohemian eased, laughing gently, palm pressing firm, knuckles brushing against Yugi's lower navel. "You want a belly rub?"

"Just shut up," Yugi moaned, "it helps."

"Okay," he consented good humouredly, laying back beside the imperial on the bed roll one arm sprawling under Yugi's neck and round his shoulders while his palm drew languid circles on the pilot's belly. "This hasn't ever happened before?"

"No," Yugi assured, he couldn't be assed to be embarrassed as he tucked his head under Atem's chin. "I got nothing."

"I think you're allergic to me," the Bohemian joked kindly, body pulling up along Yugi's with a tiny shuffle.

"I'm starting to wonder," he snorted, the fingers of one hand still laced loosely round Atem's wandering wrist over the back of his palm.

"Maybe this is karma for punching me in the face."

"Maybe you should get some for being thick enough to unchain the dangerous prisoner then." Yugi challenged peeking out from under the older man's chin to glower weakly in the dying firelight.

"Heh," Atem smiled dazzlingly in a way that stretched into his eyes, "I shouldn't like you so much. Now be nice or I'm revoking belly rub privileges."

"You do not want to do that." Yugi threated. "I'm feeling mighty fucking unstable right now."

"I'll take my chances," the Bohemian promised, tucking his chin to encourage Yugi to lay his face back into the curve of his neck.

"Horakhty one day…" he sighed.

"I know, I know."

There was a pause, Yugi's tension so loose of his shoulders he hardly recognized himself in the dark even with the pain. He settled.

"Hey," Yugi muttered butting his nose against his neck. "Thanks."

"It's okay," Atem promised, "I still hold hope that one day you and I aren't going to be fighting in a stupid war and then I'm calling in a crap tonne of favours for all the times you've almost killed me."

"That would rely on my feeling guilty."

"Not likely?"

"Had guilt genetically removed from me at age three," Yugi joked.

"So that's how they do it in Cyprus," Atem shot back unhesitatingly.

* * *

(Track- "The Only Exception" Sam Tsui cover)

Yugi fell asleep afresh with Atem still fondling, stroking, his moaning navel and woke to burning light breaking the canopy wet outside their tent. Sweaty beside the Bohemian as he stretched his toes they spread out from under the blanket into damp air. Atem seemed to sense he was awake and arm tight and strong round Yugi's waist rested his face in the cleft of the smaller man's neck.

"Hmm," Atem didn't dare pluck a kiss to the skin but seemed to consider it and Yugi wished he'd given in as he savoured him, "you smell _amazing._ Anyone ever told you that?"

"Not usually when I'm drenched in sweat," Yugi rolled onto his back to arch up towards his face and Atem's smile to try and catch it.

Atem slipped from his elbow back into the cradle of his shoulder, inhaling deeply, and Yugi tried not to squirm under his warmth as the darker body arched over him, layering. The pilot slackened, reclined back loosely, as Atem's weight pressed down into him without ever invading. It was old, old, very old in the motion so much so that it felt natural, part of the forest, part of Yugi's genes. Atem moaned, his knuckles on Yugi's navel, and seemed at peace. His stomach still clenched, ached, but Atem helped. Why did he hurt?

"God," he purred while Yugi lulled.

"That good heathen?" He teased tiredly.

Atem mumbled, muffled into his skin, but then the moment ended and pushing himself up onto powerful, craning, arms Atem peeled back.

They rose, they dressed, Atem zipped him up and didn't kiss him once. Yugi was going to starve, die, evaporate perhaps before this ever happen again. This once in a million astrological event never to be repeated was ending like some solstice. The full moon was gone and common sense was back.

"Hey," Atem hefted his pack over his shoulder, "I was born in this really tiny village in the middle of Bohemia. Nothing out there but it's really nice just to disappear to. Take you there one day?"

"If I'm still alive."

"Promise," Atem thrust his hand out, extending his pinkie.

"Heh," Yugi snorted snidely, curling his around the man's. He still felt sick. "Are you going to kiss me again before I kill you?"

"Nope," he shrugged, squeezing their pinkies. "See in my country if you love someone it doesn't matter what gender they are you can get married."

"Bunch of blasphemous farmers," he teased dryly. "I don't know what you're waiting for. Not like there's any virgin territory to claim. I'm the Emperor's bitch." _And I like it_.

"And I'm going to treat you like you should've been treated ten years ago." Atem murmured seriously. "I promise."

"I…" Honesty grows honesty. "I care about him."

"We'll work it out." Atem's fingers uncurled to grasp his hand to hold. Yugi faded, unsure, and pulling the palm to his mouth Atem pecked the skin with a lingering kind of kiss.

_Yami's not going to share._

* * *

(Track- Frank Sinatra "Can't Take My Eyes off of You")

By sunset they were almost at the ravine the cresting crux where canyon became plateau once more on imperial soil.

"Baby," Atem wanted to say it one more time, just to solidify the memory inside himself.

"Don't," Yugi's voice answered over the radio. "I need to get back into my head space."

"Okay." He breathed deep.

Atem was scared but not really for himself or his own sake. Rather as they pushed the mechs up the ridge he could see painful work waiting under the sun: Katsuya, Ryuji, Hitoro, Bakura, the Ishtars… he leeched his bravery into his bones. Could he do this? Could he stomach caring for Yugi Motou this much? This made everything officially personal. Peace became more vital than ever for his own happiness this way. He'd let it, that inkling for Yugi, consume and overwhelm. From now though he was looking at a lot of long, lonely, nights with hazed and soon obscured memories of the details of the pilot's skin or the imprint of his scent and the sound of the rain on tarp.

In effect he was surrendering Yugi to the Empire for the duration of the war. Not something his old fashioned sentimentality took kindly too. These people had broken and raised the monster he'd been trying to push through to find a human being inside. What if they hid that spark inside Yugi again? What if he wasn't good enough to get it back next time? What if that beautiful, sweet, Yugi smoked off like a crushed ember before Atem could save the day? Giving him up to these people, to the source of war mongering, was possibly that hardest thing Atem would ever have to do.

"We going to finish this Boss?" Katsuya called over the general radio, ever subtle.

"Later." Yugi grunted. "We're going home. Consider it charity for the new year."

That was a pact. Yugi didn't want to kill him anymore. They were moving forward but here Atem was under the burden to finally break the cycle of violence. The Empire was Yugi's family, it was unreasonable to ask him to fight them. That voice though, Yugi turning away from a fight, brought some peace to Atem. The memories froze from gel to solid and got traction inside him. If Atem had to fight tooth and nail…

_I'm getting you back._

* * *

(Track- Final Fantasty X "To Zanarkand" music box extended ver.)

Yami couldn't let the boy go anywhere it seemed without him obliterating something. He was going to start insisting on mandatory safety protocols in Motou's mech at this rate. Not that the pilot would keep any of them switched on. Since he was sixteen the brat had found every trick in the book to switch them off. Yugi professed he worked better, felt freer, without them but Yami wondered if it was adrenaline. That or maybe he_ was_ suicidal. Ironically and frustratingly however Heba in theory sided entirely with Yugi on the matter which meant, of course, that nothing would get done about it either way. Between them Yami was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"You want to lecture me?" Yugi stuck his head in the office.

The pilot had only gotten back hours ago during the night. He must've barely slept before manifesting at Yami's office, in a further wing of the palace, for an explanation and seemed eager to get back to bed. They really did never stop working. Yami had been up to work before Yugi had even gotten home and now it wasn't even noon yet.

"No," Yami shook his head lazily, "I doubt lecturing you would do me any good."

"Smart," the pilot scoffed.

"Come here," the Emperor beckoned instead with one outstretched finger. "I haven't welcomed you home yet."

Yugi sighed, pressing the door shut behind him to stray in closer and standing Yami rose to reach him midway round the other side of the desk. At least it never got any harder to pull the child into his arms.

"I'm tired," he mumbled.

"I just want a moment," Yami promised, stealing a kiss.

How had Yami missed him in the span of only two days? Surrendering Yugi slumped his cheek into Yami's blazer, fingers curled in his ironed shirt, and closed his eyes as patiently as the Emperor could hope for.

"Mahado tells me your mech's system almost overloaded."

"Fell off a cliff."

"The system log records a failure before that," Yami stroked down his arm.

"It's too slow," Yugi complained confessional. "It can't keep up with me anymore."

"The machine isn't that old. It's barely over six months."

"It couldn't keep up with me." The pilot insisted repeatedly, raising his head slightly, and Yami was inclined to believe him. If anyone knew the machines it was his boy.

"Alright," he consented, "that will slow down re-deployment while I acquire you something better. We'll have to replace your pulse laser as well I'm told it almost melted from use."

Yugi shrugged and slumped back against him.

"Is something wrong?" Yami prodded one fine brow inclining. "You're awfully unresponsive this morning."

"Just tired."

"Hmm," he hummed, lips plucking along the boy's brow. His hand rested on the back of the pilot's neck idly pushing him up to kiss more intimately as Yami's toying fingers found the zipper in his suit. The boy must've taken his pre-meeting nap in it.

"Later," Yugi mumbled against his lips as Yami dragged the zipper down and open slicing an exposed tract of skin along the child's back for the inspection of his roving fingers.

"Just a second," Yami hoped softly, "I just want to touch you."

He was such a beautiful thing. Naked, uniformed, suited, dolled up and muzzled down in his gym gear Yugi was perfect. Yami had yet to find a flaw in all his discovery and conquest. Unique little hand holds, grooves Yami knew by heart, tender secret zones he could map out blind were patterned down the flecked, pale, skin as Yami traced the curve of his back. Yugi rested into him, was perfectly snug in his arms, and Yami noted perhaps the boy needed a shower and proper rub down. A bath sounded glorious really for Yami's own back ache. He'd have to insist upon it tonight it he got out early enough.

He'd eat with Yugi again. It was domestic yes but he'd spent so many years eating in isolation he found he enjoyed Yugi's company away from the news reels and formality. Mana was busy with the files, Mahado running the military, Heba the laboratories, he the country… it was a beehive he commanded and these little stolen, gardened and cultivated moments with his treasure were precious parcels of peace.

Yami licked down his neck, found the sweet taste he associated with his tender boy, and let his hand stray lower over the perfect, tight, curve of the pilot's backside as Yugi sighed open mouthed into him and began to unwind. Yugi's tired tension relaxed and dragging his fingers between the curves Yami dragged the boy's earlobe between his teeth. _Yummy_ and _Mine _all at once.

Yami's fingers pressed at him, Yugi moaned torturously, and purring into his neck the Emperor found him- wet? Already wet? His fingers slipped in unhindered, un-resisted and indeed assisted. Yami's stomach flipped, knotted, cum? No, surely not, Yugi wouldn't… the traitorous_ harlot_. His mind spun, his hand withdrew, his arm clutching Yugi hard back into him till the boy gasped as he held his fingers up to inspection.

Everything came clattering, shattering, back down. Anger turned to furious panic.

Yami rubbed his fingers together.

_Blood_.

Horakhty would _die_.

"What's this…?" Yami whispered into him as Yugi strained to glance back and falling into stutters the pilot couldn't answer.

"I…is that…?" Yugi palled.

"What did Horakhty do?" Yami demanded hotly, ignited. He was _burning_.

"Horakhty?" The boy murmured and then pushing, tried to untangle from Yami's grasp. "He didn't- Nothing! I don't know what-"

Yami's arms turned to steel. He wasn't having any of that.

"What happened?" The Emperor's arms pinned the pilot to his chest, his hand wrenching Yugi's chin to his, blood still drying tangy and metallic on his fingers.

"_Nothing._" Yugi hissed. "We camped. I came home."

"You're lying," Yami squeezed him, the pads of the stained fingers digging into his jaw. "Did he hurt you?"

"Nothing happened." The pilot tried to snap, weakening, scared as he attempted again to strain against the embrace.

"Tell me." Yami insisted harshly.

"Nothing!" Yugi whimpered in a hiss breaking into a moan. "_Stop!_ _Let go_. Please, Yami I didn't…"

"Yugi…" he collapsed, refusing to let go, obscuring his face in the boy's neck. "_Yugi_…"

No. There would be no digesting it. The boy would confess and Yami would execute Atem Horakhty suddenly and violently in front of millions for it. If the republican supposed for a second that overpowering a smaller body was a legitimate means of terror Yami didn't care how proud Yugi was he would slander the Bohemian till he'd obliterated his image.

"I didn't," Yugi whined into him, "nothing happened! I don't know why- I got sick and-"

The boy slumped a little forward in his arms somewhere between moaning and hissing into hyperventilation. He shook his head and clutching him Yami straightened them, moaning into the boy's cheek as Yugi stuttered again through explanations.

"I didn't sleep with-" he hiccupped, trying to appeal to the man. "I don't know why that- I felt gross in the night and…we thought something bit me but we couldn't find any and…" Yugi tried to turn towards him and Yami allowed it meeting the boy's eyes. "I…" Yugi rasped through a horrible breath. "I'm bleeding…?"

"Shh," Yami pulled the boy's head under his chin, "shh…I'm going to call medical."

"No! _No!_" Yugi pushed.

"Shh," Yami pinned him insistently, lips against his fringe. "We have to check you're not bleeding internally. That nothing's ripped or damaged." He tried not to shout. He was furious furious _furious_. There wasn't a word for it. Yugi couldn't seem to stop panicking through wracking, panting, breaths. "It'll be alright, strictly confidential, no one will ever know-"

"No hospitals." Yugi hissed still unable to stop bouncing his shoulders in a fit of hysterics shaking his face desperately into Yami's clavicle. "I don't want to-I hate-"

"They'll come here," Yami promised, arms mapping the body that was _his_. "They'll come to your rooms. You won't leave the palace. _Shh_, breathe, breathe child…"

"I didn't-" Yugi choked arms launching themselves, scrambling, desperate round Yami's shoulders.

"I know," the Emperor murmured into him. "I know, I know…"

"I promise-"

"_Shh_," Yami hissed, "I believe you."

Atem Horakhty was going to be tortured violently for this abomination.

* * *

1 If it seems strange how Yugi falls to pieces here for Atem I put to you two things: Yugi's desperately miserable in a lot of ways (Yami you had 19 chapters to use the damn L word!) and its also _foreshadowing~_

2 Atem confessed he watched his mother commit suicide this chapter. It was an inevitable plot point actually: notice Atem makes mention to how his village pitied "the poor motherless Horakhty boys" and his whole attitude to Yugi noticeably changes after Yugi destroys both their mechs rather than lose.

3 Let's all digest the fact Yugi is so talented he broke a goddamn mech by being too good a pilot. Let's also try and ruminate why the hell is he bleeding?

_**4 Now**_; you and I all know Yugi and Atem did not have sex but put yourself in Yami's shoes. If my lover comes home from a night with his worst enemy (a guy I've never met) and he's tired, unlike himself, and bleeding anywhere remotely sexual what would I assume? I would be livid. I would put that fucker six feet under before anyone explained the story.

_For Giggles:_ Legally Blonde "_Gay or European_" is what I imagine the Bohemians are like when they all sit around chatting about the Empire and Emperor Sennen.

_Shout Out_: also for anyone interested M0NK-T0NK has some YGO and YGO Zexal art on her tumblr which is quite cute! (monktonk dot tumblr dot com)

**Next Time:** Heba finds what he's been looking for, Atem earns himself _two_ powerful new enemies, Yugi considers his options, and a horrible dream rocks in the beginning of a new, more dangerous, game.


	20. Chapter 20

Hey loves! Make sure you read the end author note~

You know, just as an aside if you've ever wondered, sometimes my girlfriend looks at me in bed and goes; "that's going to be in your damn fic next week isn't it?" and I go "…Yep."

+ Arrrgh sorry for the problems at the end of this chapter guys. This is why I shouldn't edit at midnight.

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY  
(Track- Pans Labyrinth Soundtrack "Lullaby" music box version)

"Well?" Yami growled into the handset under his breath as he stalked back towards his office.

"We didn't find any damage your Majesty, he seems perfectly healthy," the doctor rasped back uneasily. "There was some bleeding but no evident source. I suspect it was the dive off that cliff rattling him in the harness. He should be fine but I would like to keep him overnight for observation in the medical wing if at all possible."

"It's not," Yami smoothed still tense, "leave him in his rooms. He'll be more comfortable I hope you understand. We'll call you if it's at all necessary during the night."

"Yes Majesty," he paused, he obviously wanted to argue but knew better.

"Good work."

Yami pressed the call button and locked the door stiffly. He steadied his hoarse voice, boiling, and could feel Heba's eyes on his back just where he wanted his witch to be at a time like this. Yami had expected Heba to arrive, he had called for him, and he needed him. He strode easily past the witch, without noticing entirely, and had settled in his seat however before he began to really speak.

"That filthy rebel-" Yami was prepared for his tirade when:

"_Grrrrrrrrnnn…_"

Yami had never heard such a sound before.

Chords akin to Yugi's voice twisted down into a breathy guttural hiss writhing from the back of Heba's throat.

"Heba…?" Yami perked gently from his seat, lowering the phone in hand, eyes rising from the laptop screen sprawled before him in a heap.

"That_ smell_." The tiny wraith gave another little hiss, sniffing. Petite fingers twitching, nails accentuated, as he mumbled. "What is that?"

"What are you talking about?"

"_That_." Heba growled voice almost breaking.

Yami's inner animal recognized a larger predator, folded, and hesitantly he cringed back into his seat. His office had hardly changed. All he could smell was his cologne, his sweat, old coffee, Yugi's sweat, the ring of sex, rounded off with that wafting lament of fermenting cherries and cinnamon that was primal and sweet. Ripeness, humidity, the whole room smelt vaguely off it but it was an undercurrent to the overwhelming air of dull office pleasantries and normalcy. You had to look for it.

Heba mumbled, airlessly under his breath, voice still drifting into cutting snaps part human part monstrous pitch. He had his back still turned toward the door, fixated. Yami was uneasy to move or speak and sniffing Heba gave a moaning, broken, almost howl strained behind his teeth.

"_Foundspreadingplaugefoundher efoundfoundopen_-"

"Heba…?" Yami tried softly again. "Heba, little one, what is it?"

Something seemed to snap, a chord, and inhaling brokenly Heba startled to twist on his heels to face him. His eyes widened, settled, the contracting pupils of a cat in an alley. His shoulders slipped back gracefully from their hunch as if a spell had been broken. Heba took a deep, steadying breath and seemed to remember Yami was even present, seemed to see him finally.

"Nothing," he whispered. "I…I thought I felt something wrong, out of place, but it's gone."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Heba sighed, laughing weakly. "Everything's fine. I thought I felt a ghost."

Yami held out his arms, dumbfounded, and the eyes of a startled animal, cunning, settled on him before Heba followed. Light footed, fast, onto the desk on his hands and knees Hebe was quickly into Yami's lap. Heba sunk into place easily, smaller somehow than even Yugi, resting his legs on either side of Yami. He was weightless, temperate and smooth like a gemstone held to skin. It felt razor sharp, dangerous, to have Heba so close but Yami found he rather like the certainty of it. Heba kept everything in place while Yugi scratched his itches.

They stared at each other for a moment Yami trying to read the impulses in those dark eyes that were, settled doll like on his face, a million light years away with something. Heba had something in the turn of his perfectly aligned lips as if a cat who had spotted something moving on the rug.

"You are my treasure," Heba hushed vaguely till Yami could almost hear his mind spinning at an inhumane pace, "you know don't you?"

"I know," Yami assured primly, Heba was so very ferociously wild. "I'm lost without you. I depend upon you."

"Hmm," the witch sighed into him without ever really touching, but Yami could feel Heba. He could feel the nonphysical essence of the creature, his kingmaker, leeching into him and mingling. "I don't think I will ever be rid of our infections for each other."

Never, Yami knew. You couldn't undo Heba. He had never doubted for a second that allowing the witch an inch would be an inch that Yami could never reclaim. Every step he allowed Heba in was vaporised, radioactive, unable to ever be habited again by simple man. Yami could not rule without Heba. It was addiction and disease and _power_. Heba was power. Heba was mother too.

"When you're ready to take the last initiation," Heba hushed by his ear, "I will be so eager for you."

Yami couldn't begin to trace how Heba had spun onto that tangent but, the gentle parent, Yami diverted patiently.

"Not yet."

"Soon," the witch assured him, and Yami supposed it was only inevitable. How long could he resist surrender to that temptation? Heba wanted it after all.

But right now the Emperor wanted…

"Heba," Yami murmured, "I need you now. I want to…"

"I know," he chuckled, purring. "I can feel the vengeance rolling off you in _waves_."

"I want his skull on my mantle. He defiled- traumatised my…" Yami couldn't say. Yet Heba knew intrinsically with genius. "Will…help me?"

"Skin him alive." Heba purred voice tearing into an impassioned hiss. "Atem Horakhty begins to insult my existence the longer he stands."

"I want to destroy him."

"Perfect," Heba growled.

* * *

(Track- Narnia Soundtrack "Lullaby")

Heba didn't so much mind birds as he did rats. Rats were vermin and birds were fodder, yes, but at least birds aspired for higher things even if they were primal _monstrosities_ the pair of them. Both however fell under him as testing subjects which wasn't at all to say he didn't have a storehouse of very willing human experimental volunteers waiting for him. Just a door away actually…

Still he rather liked to leave the birds in the cage for last as he rolled the white lab mouse over in his fingers onto its belly. Female. God he_ hated_ females. Vermin could be pregnant from something like four days old and have litters of ten or fifteen every three weeks for the entirety of their pitiful life spans. _Disgusting_. _Digustingdisgustingdisgusti_-

"Doctor Bound?" Useless drone number four had some will of her own still.

"Did you intercept the Emperor's orders to Minister Mahado?"

"Yes Doctor Bound," little brunette nodded stiffly, "intelligence is to follow and ambush Horakhty."

"I want you to alter the coded instructions from the Minister to intelligence before they reach the inbox." Heba ordered. "New orders are: immediate trail, intercept and if at all possible terminate on sight and without mercy."

"Yes Doctor Bound."

"Good girl." He squeezed the rat between his fingers. He could still smell Sennen's office. That despicable scent… The rat squealed, chirped, in pain. "Oh and, number four, one more thing."

"Yes Sir?"

"I want Horakhty's body brought to me dissection. Highest priority."

* * *

(Track- Phantom of the Opera "music of the night" instrumental)

It was dark in the Empress's quarters when Yami snuck through the passage into the bedroom from his own. He expected Yugi to rest after torturous little sleep and… he felt heavy, angry, bitterly congealed…words weren't flowing. His politician's mind was failing him. Still, Yami considered himself even now more a politician than a prince. The curtains were open at least, sun just about gone, and Yami could make the pilot out on the bed, in his long sweat pants, burrowed in the pillows. He settled on the edge of the mattress and despite himself couldn't fathom where to lay his hand.

"Yugi."

A grunt, heavy and mollified with distant distain not so much for Yami but existence in general muffled up from the pillows.

"Any better?"

"Feel like crap," he sighed, "I_ hate_ doctors. That has to be the second most humiliating thing I've ever had to sit through."

Pain, things Yami couldn't fix. Uselessness and futility mingled up in wanting to touch the boy but being unsure how. Yami remembered being twenty and on the field. He remembered the camping, the dirt, the blood, the sweat, the violence and the satisfaction. He hadn't been so unlike Yugi at that age. He'd always, for all his life, been so_ angry_ but he had tempered himself in a different way to Yugi. The Emperor ran his hand on the small of the child's back.

Heba had a plan, he always did, he'd told Yami only a week ago that if the Emperor wanted it then the witch could find a way for this boy to have his heirs and be his, to officially reign in the Empress's quarters, not just as the mistress. Part of Yami insisted that if he was ever to have that he needed to start thinking along those lines. Not just at the last moment like how he'd seized the crown. He needed to form this from scratch, with intention, if he was ever to have it. Boys, children, heirs, princes... happy young with bright futures and parents and love and…everything Yami had desperately wanted but never had. Things he suspected Yugi had known and lost once already.

To him it wasn't so much a question of _if_ as_ when_ and _how_. Heba could bottle him stars if Yami asked, he was sure of it these days, but he doubted Heba could make Yugi Motou do anything he didn't want to do. Yami wanted him, he was beginning to accept that, that this was perhaps the closest he would ever come to real, mature, love and certainly the closest he'd ever been. With Yugi, at least for another decade, he could be happy and he could, potentially, raise a family with his insufficient skill for paternity.

His thumb idled on the small of the boy's back. Atem Horakhty was not going to take that promise of growth away from Yami. No man was. No one was infesting or claiming or defiling what was his ever again if Yami had to return to the battlefield himself and take up the sword. He would comfort Yugi but the boy would never admit to what Yami suspected. Yugi didn't confess weakness or failure even under torture. Yami could wait fifteen years and never hear the details of what might have happened between his brat and the Rebel filth so he would tuck it away with a logical certainty of the facts and simply act on it. Fix it.

Heba had given him back a backbone and Yugi would bore the benefits of it.

"I was going to take a bath," Yami explained. "Do you want to join me?"

"Yeah," Yugi sighed to his surprise, permissive as ever.

* * *

(Track "Exile, Vilify" The National)

The Emperor and the pilot were incompetent nearly at niceties but they pussyfooted round attempts long enough to settle in the tub peacefully. Yugi's muscles were tightly knotted when he sunk into the bath but when the water permeated his skin he uncoiled in fragments. Yami leant into the opposing end of the porcelain, gave him space, and Yugi couldn't stand the look in his eye or the inkling air of vengeance.

Yugi liked water, Sort of. He had a love-hate relationship with it. It was fluid (fucking _duh_) but…the transparency, the weightlessness, the freedom of it eased him. Still as much as he loved the ocean, and he did, (at twelve he'd wanted to be a giant squid. No one had ever seen one alive, they only knew they existed because they washed up on shore occasionally the size of cars. Yugi wanted that kind of life) it didn't help that his earliest memories were of drowning.

Sticky, umbilical, sludge in TU…squirming naked… just the image sent a tingle up his spine. Those _fuckers_… Yugi still hoped every single one of them was rotting alive somewhere. This was all their fault.

Now Yugi's body was broken somehow, mysterious and foreign, and without any reason or answers had betrayed him. It was disgusting and now, after a couple of hours, he could think of a whole host of explanations he hadn't at the time. He'd fallen off a cliff, he fucked rough all the time…he should've sprouted something like that at Sennen in the moment with his usual sass but…Knowing what had transpired with Atem, the sight of his own blood, had thrown Yugi in the Emperor's office. Now Sennen thought… now Yugi had to defend…and… he swallowed. He pushed through the water and arching off the purchase of the bath moved against the Emperor.

The man was quick to unwind his shoulders and gather him up, clutch him, snugly skin to skin. Yugi released a tight breath with his back against the elder's chest, trying to totally unknot his posture. Was Yugi losing control over the strings? Hmm…he rested his head back into the Emperor's shoulder.

This was fucking surreal. Every day was fucking surreal. He had Sennen, now Horakhty, and plainly put he was far too embroiled in emotions Yugi had long since capped in a box. He'd never developed much compassion or love. The complex layers of emotional relationships were lost on him. Need, demand and result were more his thing. He'd been nice once, he vaguely remembered it, but being nice had gotten him _shit_ _all_. So Yugi had learnt, very quickly, that if he bit, scratched and clawed, strived and survived, then he got what he wanted but he always had to grab for it. He felt he'd been born savage eyed, primly made, deeply terrified and eternally untrusting.

Horakhty…

Yugi closed his eyes and Sennen didn't even half feel like Atem. Yami was…Yugi struggled for a word but the Emperor was unfathomable and amazing in equal measure good and bad. Yet Atem and Yami were plainly comprised of totally different elements and Yugi couldn't totally trace the base of his need, his urgency, to run to Atem.

That said there'd be no switching sides. Yugi was too loyal to the Emperor to complicate that part of his life now. It was set in stone. Besides that he couldn't risk it. Sennen may not have threatened yet but he could. It all depended on what had survived from The Underground. It depended on the secrets known and lost. So then emotionally and practically Yugi wasn't half sure where he stood with Yami. This bizarrely tender, neurotic, politician who was needy, possessive, floundering and dominating all at once stripped him of better sense.

Atem was simple. Atem was ancient somehow. Atem was straight lines and pure elements and right. Yami was a concoction, something irresistible somehow but its exact features were untraceable or unidentifiable. Yugi couldn't betray Yami if he tried, the man's voice had too much power over him, leaving was a chemical impossibility. Likewise however there was magnetism with Atem that would not be denied and longed, ached, to be fulfilled.

Yami gave him nightmares, Yami might drag them both down by feeding Yugi's wander and bloodlusts but Atem might unlatch the cage and steal him off depending on the circumstances. In a perfect world, if the war was over, where would Yugi want to be? Sex, lavish wantonness, and desires totally pure balanced both sides while time and history hung heavy bets on Sennen.

Yugi was too tired and too apathetic for this.

He'd just have to fight his way to a solution.

That was all he knew how to do.

* * *

(Track- Phantom of the Opera "Masquerade" music box)

Yugi kicked out the blankets and started to roll- _Oomph! _Well, until a soon to be amputated arm hooked tight round his waist and hefted him back into the Emperor's chest before he could clamber out of bed. Yami huffed, half conscious, into the back of Yugi's scalp exhaling cold-hot down the back of his neck and resettled his weight to pin them both with Yugi half on his stomach.

"Hey," Yugi puffed blowing a strand of fringe out of his eyes, "up. Gym, new mech, life."

"Hmm," Sennen grunted, evidently unconvinced by his proposal.

Yugi slumped patiently in the nearly dawn light over the snow in the garden and was too restless to wait much longer. He pushed at the man's arm, it refused to dislodge, he grumbled fractionally louder at the back of his throat.

"Sod off," he ordered.

"No." Sennen retorted nonchalantly. "Take the day off."

"I don't want to," Yugi snapped, "I'm bored!"

"You're bleeding internally."

"I _was_."

"I had to talk med out of keeping you overnight," Sennen sighed, "that implies to me you need to take it easy. Unless you want to prove otherwise I'm court marshalling you to the mattress."

"Ha, ha," Yugi drawled scathingly. "_Off_."

Sennen chuckled, snorted, and held him in the firm arm of a confidently vested, mature, man. Sometimes Yami really did feel twelve years older than him. Some big dog trying to pin down a kitten from causing hell in a big new world filled with delicate ornaments. Yugi would've struggled furtively except Yugi wasn't a bitch Yugi was an _elite_. Yugi also was getting mighty sick of this coddling.

"_Arh-Oomph!"_

It was a pretty awesome sound. The sound of a grown, smug, paternal man getting his ass reassessed and handed to him. Yugi couldn't quite explain the exact physics of the move but a lot of tense thigh strength was involved. Suddenly settled on the back of the Emperor's thighs, resting his whole weight there, twisting one arm back far enough to nearly hurt, he scratched his side sloppily with his free hand.

"You were saying?"

"Motou! Off!" The Emperor snapped, horrified, suddenly very much awake and trapped.

"Nope," Yugi denied blandly, "unless you want to scream for the guards like a pussy. I consider that _uncle _though."

"I'm warning you-"

"You'll what?" He blew off dismissively. "You're handling me like I'm breakable cargo. It's fucking unbearable."

"I'm_ trying_ to consider your best interests." Yami hissed slowly.

"You're succeeding at treating me like a child," Yugi sassed back, contorting his voice mockingly. He twisted the Emperor's arm, with years of practice, just enough to get a groan from the unyielding and strong body.

"Jesus Christ," he moaned into the linen, turning his face into obscurity in frustration. Yami reappeared a second of collection later though. "I know you have no sense of self-preservation. _However_ you're going to have to forgive me for attempting to keep you in one salvageable piece."

"I," Yugi stressed leaning into Yami's shoulder blades to force his face between cheek and shoulder in half a nuzzle at the cove, "can take care of myself. I did just fine without you Sennen. I don't need anyone to baby me."

"I…" he sighed back into the pillow away from Yugi's face, "can we have this conversation like civilized adults please?"

"Nah, I like you like this," Yugi grinned licking up his jaw as he felt Sennen flex in a squirm beneath him. "You're hot."

"_Pfft_," he grumbled, "yes well…I know you can handle yourself I just…"

"Stop acting like a boyfriend." The pilot teased nipping at his earlobe unhelpfully. "Act like you."

"This is me," Yami rumbled, trying to raise his head. "You make me…distinctly _protective_."

"Possessive." Yugi corrected.

"That too," he slumped in confession. He seemed to mull it over. "Does it hurt?"

"No," Yugi was being honest about that at least, still curled close over the Emperor. "I feel lazy and fat. I want to run and get sweaty and rub up against you till you're nuts."

"So your supplies of requisite _evil _are at satisfactory levels then," Yami snorted.

"Pretty much."

"Are you still bleeding?"

"I…" Yugi sat back and shoved one hand down the back of his shorts curiously. "I don't think so?"

"Should I check?" Yami offered gently.

"I guess," he shrugged, loosening his grip to unhook his legs from the Emperor. Flopping back on his arse on the mattress he watched as Sennen pushed up by his elbows with a little stretching moan of relief.

"Lie back," he instructed.

Slumping easily Yugi did. Thumbs hooking in the elastic of his waist line to push his bunched up shorts down his thighs with his feet pulled in and knees bent. Yami leant over him to the bed side table, nearly crawling, knees finding their way naturally between Yugi's before he to settled back with the lube.

"Oh all civilized," Yugi teased.

"Quiet you," Yami warned, squeezing the gel between his fingers. "I still have those handcuffs of yours."

"Kinky."

"Till I leave for meetings."

"Pfft," Yugi dismissed, "you'd have to pin me first anyway."

"You're not the only one with training."

Yugi smirked, hands sprawling on his thighs as his feet cocked round Yami's waist comfortably. The Emperor paused, eyes trailing and fingers skimming between them. Yugi gave a closet sound behind pursed lips as the elder's fingers ran slickly over his entrance.

"Tempted…?" Yugi teased, giving half a grin and nearly a chuckle. It was a smile kind of.

"Very," Yami admitted distantly a flanking hand straying over Yugi's navel under his mused top. The pilot let him, drew his legs in ever so lightly in a cage tangled round the other's waist and pushing past Yugi's miniscule flinch Yami eased the tip of one digit inside him.

Yugi's lips pressed together, he sighed without opening his mouth, eyes twitched shut towards the ceiling and sighing Yami sunk to the knuckle paper weighting him with the secondary palm along the pilot's belly. Yami seemed rather thoughtful somehow when he tapped the indent of Yugi's belly button with his index finger curling the more engrossed digit inside him.

Yugi made half a sound at that, ankles crossing.

"Sorry," Yami abated, pulling back even as, not quite whining, Yugi arched his hips.

"Oh come on!" Yugi groaned throwing his forearm over his eyes.

"Never mind," the Emperor murmured, rubbing his slick digits together. "You seem fine. Gym was top of your list of demands wasn't it?"

"Heh," he chortled, "yeah."

"Fine," Yami consented, hands squeezing his hips fleetingly. "Go have fun."

"Damn straight."

* * *

(Track- Passion Pit "Where I come From")

Oh fuck. Sweat, circulation, emphasises of power running down his limbs. Perfect. Yugi sighed, stretching both laced hands over his head and felt the taunt pull of his muscles to reach apex as he wound down.

His arms slapped back against his side, all his pieces mentally jumbled back into place and the blood, Atem, the past few days recoiled back inside him to that little box where he bottled everything. Physical activity was his escape and his saviour. Yugi repressed with it and he had since he was small. Even in a two by two meter room he could still do push ups. The one thing people could never take from him was his own body. Even strapped to hospital beds he could twitch his fingers, try and blink, do _something_. Stripping that away, just that, with drugs or anything else rather distressed him.

Jou, Honda and Otogi had wandered in a few hours into Yugi's work out. They'd probably been finishing the mission reports for the last week in the staff room. Yugi tended to do his while he worked on one of the fixed bikes. It's was rare in Yugi's life to have people to share a work out space with. Defence had posted him and now them in a corner of the facility which was basically: a mini hangar for the mechs, a few simulation pods, gym, a staff room with tiny kitchenette, a bathroom with shower and a couple of cot beds. The gym was incredibly well outfitted but that was because if it hadn't have been Yugi would've returned to stealing equipment from the other major gym. Stealing was awesome.

"Got a deal for you," Yugi stretched, bending at the hip. "Who wants to raid the facilities over in main block?"

"Whatcha planning Boss?" Jou dug for details still sweating through, panting, on one of the treadmills.

"Shooting range, their mech sims got an extra update they still haven't sent us, and they've got some nice old school swords."

"Won't they actually be training soldiers in there?" Honda supposed.

"Won't we actually not give a fuck?" Yugi snorted, touching his toes.

"Pretty much," Otogi grinned from the weight bench. "It'll do em good to get shoved out a little."

"Look at all the fucks we give," Jou chortled. "_Fuck_it'll be nice not to be the rookie getting hazed on ya know?"

"Hmm, bullets," Yugi savoured absently. He loved weapons unsurprisingly.

"Damn straight," Honda retorted more to Jou than Yugi. "I wouldn't mind a date sometime though. I mean we've been on the news and stuff! Nowadays I could probably get a proper girl and I don't have time."

"Better ask the master," Jou teased. "You're getting all the pussy aren't ya Yug?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Is she hot?"

"Are _they_ hot I think you mean?" He grinned. Jou whistled. Yugi didn't mind the image of the wild ace who had multiple ladies on the arm. Little less scandalous than the Grand Duke and ace who doubled as the Emperor's live in mistress.

The hydraulic door on the far wall, by the security panel which had taken a beating over the year, swished open as Yugi reassumed his full height and looking mildly displaced Minister for Defence Mahado strolled into their den of infamy.

"Minister," Yugi popped his lips, "what's up?"

"Motou," he inclined his head, glancing as the others came to abrupt pauses unsure to salute or not like a cage full of lions looking to Yugi. "If you could follow me for a moment?"

"Sure," Yugi swiped up his water bottler. Jou began to pause on the treadmill and pointing with the index finger of the same hand holding the bottle Yugi gestured. "_Stay boy_."

"Aww," Jou complained, slumping.

Mahado lead them into the hallway and then down towards the hangar with the boys left behind. Sipping briskly Yugi fell into stride beside him and knew the Minister was more afraid of him than could possibly be said vice-versa.

"So what's up?"

"We have a new mech model organized for you."

"That was fast," Yugi murmured.

"Turns out they had one in the outer labs they wanted to test out." Mahado shrugged as he pressed at the elevator. "New console and response system, it's a very high tech prototype."

"Pft, yeah," he snorted. "Without Kaiba I'm sure it's fab." Nothing, surely, could match the quality of the ex-Crown Prince's products in Yugi's mind anyway.

"They were kind enough to outfit your electric pulse laser onto the rig." Mahado brushed over uneasily at the snide remark. "It's called the MAG1C. They assure me you can be rough with it but I would prefer it if you took into account the cost of the prototype during combat."

"Well you've got two options," Yugi tossed his water bottle between hands, "either I'm nice with the hardware or I win your battles. Any preferences?"

Mahado sighed tightly through his nostrils as the steel cage spread open onto the hangar. A strut or three later they were by the mech rig glancing up. Yugi cradled his elbow in the opposing hand and took another sip as he hummed to himself.

"Looks pretty sassy."

"Yes…" Mahado didn't seem to know quite what to say to that. "Uh, well, if you'd like to test drive it I'd suggest you make yourself comfortable with it before the next mission. The techs from the outer labs assured me they'd be on standby for you if there are any technical difficulties that need resolving."

"Sweet," Yugi slumped, "better go break the paint work in then."

* * *

(Track- Phantom of the Opera "Music of the Night" instrumental)

Yugi slipped into the side locker room off the hangar as Mahado scampered up the elevator cage, away from discomfort, to grab his best response suit from inside the locker with his key card. He unzipped the back briskly, in a motion he must've done twelve thousand times since he was eight years old, and-

He paused.

Yugi felt his shoulders fall.

He held the suit barely to his chest. He caught a whiff of that forest floor dirt from his boots still in the locker and squeezed the suit in his fingers.

He had an ultra crystal clear flash of recognition.

Instantaneously he could feel Atem slicing open the back of his response suit. Calloused farm fingers just over his shoulder blade.

A breath.

Yugi…

Yugi found himself slowly pressing the suit against his chest, curling in, crushing it against him and sinking into his knees it was hard to stop spinning round his fluttering heart.

_Please come get me_.

His knuckles were white, nails nearly in his palm through the Kevlar blend polymer of the suit that was trying not to give as Yugi fought to inhale properly. Pain. Pain from that little bottle-box thing at the back of his mind which most normal people called their heart…

_Love…?_

* * *

(Track- "Bittersweet" Ellie Goulding)

The MAG1C moved beautifully. Yugi could feel the pulses surging through the suit, could zone with it, it moved much better. The system seemed more hardwired to his special brand of specifications. It prompted in sync, nearly, with his thoughts. It wasn't rigged to his brain or anything, no one had that kind of technology, but the AI was much more responsive. It seemed to realize Yugi could think faster than the average pilot and that it needed to respond faster. He experimented with it on the range. He pushed and the system geared up, he rolled back and the prompt pace decreased. It was…shit who'd built this thing? Yugi wanted to buy them Christmas presents. The prototype was perfect.

Well, unless…

Unless this was the product of someone who knew? Did Sennen have old engineers from TU kicking round? Yugi had so hoped that… He capped the thought.

The sun petered off over the horizon and after motioning in the mech Yugi's brain waves felt a little more at peace when he dismissed Jou, Honda and Otogi for the day to lean against the wall of the elevator and go back to his quarters.

Yami didn't get out of meetings, Ministry debates and courtly chats with nobles till eight but when he did there was bad, totally news free, TV and an honest to god pair of pizzas security had retrieved. Only the palace would make a big fucking deal out of pizza.

Either way it was a bizarre paradox; totally mundane on one level and incredibly unfathomable on another. At the simplest level, which felt very intimate to the truth and yet very detached, Yugi enjoyed dinner and a mundane evening with his partner of fast approaching a year. On the other side of that coin, funnily, it was weird to contemplate who they actually were: the Emperor of Cyprus and his noble militaristic kinsman-come-mistress stealing pizza in a palace. It just… it all clashed… it was perfect somehow yet jumbled in another way.

To his own detriment Yugi found his mind straying. What was it like in Atem's home town? What would this exact moment be like with him? How would it play out? Atem's strong, gentle, arms round him…

Yugi leant into his knees, chewed, and contrasted. Yami the charming, possessive, neurotic clung and tried to be polite and proper in a way that was very different to Atem's courtly, knightly, ancient chivalry. It didn't seem possible two men could be so totally alike and yet so totally different. Atem the country hero of Bohemia; naïve, patriotic and booming with egalitarian optimism who dreamed of a grand and achievable Utopia _versus_ Yami Sennen the cynical, tight and hardy, Emperor of Cyprus who was twice as elegant in his speech but only expressed feelings half as well. Yugi's inner dreamer and his aloof, political, strategist were at odds. Atem was exactly what Atem was, which sounded like a stupid sentence, and Yami was a politician at the heart.

Yugi couldn't place that all together in any consoling way. He could fathom explaining his relationship with Yami, which seemed simple but was incredibly complex, all based on a façade of apathy and lust mingled with actual foxed affection. He could see how that had happened but on the other hand…

Atem… the way Yugi's stomach knotted and summoned up rainforests and fields and family sewn blankets… he couldn't fathom how a relationship which should've been complex was so incredibly simple. On the basis of nothing but some insanely combustive affection, not attraction but _affection_, that was magnetic and irresistible and insane Yugi wanted to run away with a man he would profess to love.

That was the tug of war though. Yugi would never leave Yami, never abandon him, couldn't dream of it in a thousand years of star gazing. Yet in equal measure half of him yearned, desperately, to escape into a lifetime of relative, humble, obscurity with Atem in the secret simples of the countryside in pastoral Bohemia. Palaces and cottages, kings and farmers, nature and instinct, _politiqute_ and _companionate_ as the medieval historians would say…

Yami nudged his side with his bare foot as Yugi glazed at the screen with his mouth in hand. The pilot glanced, the Emperor cocked his chin in the universal sign for bed and began to rise with a cue to follow. This wasn't sex anymore. Not even close. Not the way Yugi packed himself naturally accustomed under the blankets and lay his head on Yami's clavicle.

Yami kissed his brow. He didn't have to say goodnight for Yugi to know he was wanted. The pilot hooked his leg over the man's hips and wished they'd started this twelve years ago or something. A little bit of quick math told Yugi he would've been eight if they had but even if they'd just liked each other a little more then maybe this would be easier but… no that wouldn't have ever happened even in a parallel universe given how angry they had been as children.

Yugi turned his face into skin and Yami motioned round him fuller, hand sliding from Yugi's knee down his leg where it rested round the pilot's hips.

* * *

(Track- Alice the Madness Returns "Castles in the Sky")

Yugi didn't know where he was for a moment. It didn't matter. What mattered was what he _saw_. It obscured any possible interest in the where, the what, and the how. Just…monstrous, gross, horror and… Yugi knew he was shaking or he would've been if he had any sense of the physical.

Yami had his back to him, sitting on the bed, or a bed, or something with sheets leaning back into his arms, sighing as he let his head lull back.

Yami's eyes were closed, Yugi could just make it out over his shoulder, and he seemed serene. Horribly at peace with the whole process which at first Yugi couldn't discern as anything untoward until…

_Slurp-craaaa-caackle-snap-shuuuulrp _

Little snaps, cracks and breaks came from over Yami's shoulder, down his front, with this horrible suckling procession of sounds. Yugi thought maybe… sex…? No the positions were wrong. The person, thing, in Yami's lap had their bare leg round his waist the other still in his lap with the bare knee jutting out over the side into view. Yugi could see nothing but pure, pristine, skin all the way up the ghost of a thigh. They were too high up to be sucking like _that_…

A hand trailed round from Yami's front up his white shirted back. A slender arm followed till fingers were curled in the fabric over his shoulder blade with a petite elbow in Yugi's line of sight. The hand… blood…almost all the way to the elbow there was thick… globs, coating and still sticky on the skins and…

Yugi felt a surge of terror and with it the terror of being noticed.

Something was breaking his chest open…

Disgust, bile, fear… Yugi couldn't…Oh god…

_Sluuurp_

A pause.

A terrible, cold, pause in the soundwaves emanating from the Emperor's lap.

It peaked, very slowly, over Yami's shoulder but even before then Yugi knew it was aware of him. It was hooded, obscured, and it glanced only to expose to the curve of a petite, childish, little nose. It was a human face, nearly, but the eyes…just… big, almost too big, inhumanly round set in the face like some _thing_ and…black, just black, no pupils, no light, nothing…

But Yugi knew it was looking at him.

"PromETHEus."

_-Zzzzzz-Kjxnjbvjhevebhbhjhjvbhjh-zzzzzzzzzzzzz-vbjhbjvejev  
_  
Yugi's brain scattered, the vision fuzzed like an old screen, till a procession of funny images spliced over each other.

"-it's in!"

"Seal the vault!"

"There's still civilians-"

"_Seal the fucking vault!_"

"But Si-_Zzzzzzzzzzz_

_jhcbwjhkbvjebqvbvhjbhvjhbjvv hvzzzzzzzzzzz_

The frayed edges came instantaneously back together.

_kjcwbjkqej_-"Behind every Dictator lies the Devil"-_bvkjqebvkjqbk_  
-"_You have been found"_-  
-"_The last will die"-_

* * *

(Track- no track)

He woke in a cold sweat _screaming._

Yami startled but Yugi wasn't totally aware of him till kicking and screaming against the man's restraints he began to come into focus. The Emperor's hand clasped over his mouth, trying to whisper wildly into his ear, arms locking round him. He was trying to ward off the guards from running in in a panic but Yugi couldn't comprehend that at first. At first all he knew was he was being trapped and he panicked.

It wasn't until he started to filter in Yami's voice that his form began to sag.

_Dreamdreamdreamdreamdream!_

_"Shh_," Yami hissed against him desperately, _"shh_. It's okay, it's okay…"

Yami rocked them.

"It's okay, shh," he cycled through the hushing anew as Yugi began to realign to his senses. "It's okay, it was just a nightmare. You're okay, it's okay, I've got you, _shhhh_…"

* * *

**Hint Songs:**

Heba- "O' Death" Supernatural Full Version + "Slut like You" Pink  
Yami/Heba- Pink "My Signature Move"

**Next Time: **Yugi gets himself in serious trouble, Yami makes a desperate decision to cross the line, Heba wins ground, Kaiba and Mokuba find themselves cornered and Atem remembers the details…

* * *

**Tomorrow!**

On Saturday I will be posting part one of a new two shot called "_Suspects and Subjects_" as my lovely honeys this is a sneak peak~

…

Yugi's face had amniotic fluid on it from pushing back his hair with the back of his palm. He was a mess and mindless of it for those first five or six hours entirely. When it lulled of half asleep he expected it to stop breathing but it snored, nasally, in the back of its throat and when it woke and rasped clucks up at him Yugi started reaching for the warm nutrient slush that should, hopefully, keep it growing.

The only memory that stuck out, two years later, in the haze of cleaning and pacing awed and confused was trying to get subject thirteen to suckle. Like a baby crocodile, a snake, it probably could've fed itself but it had so much more mammal in it now that Yugi without thinking cradled it up into his chest and tried rubbing the plastic teat against its thin lips.

Yugi was seventeen, he had no idea how to do any of it with a human child, and he'd never had a mother of his own. His grandfather told him once that she'd wanted to have a whole gaggle of children. Yugi had always looked down on that as the quickest way to strangle a woman out of her chance to leave an impression on the world but…

It creaked, whined, and hushing Yugi started mimicking the sounds down to it.

"_Shh, hnnn_," he hummed, pushing the thin plastic teat.

It whined, opened that snap jaw mouth and lips fastening squirmed uncomfortably like a cat trying to break out of Yugi's arms. Yugi's legs ached tremulously from standing so long and weak kneed in the kitchen he sunk down to lean into the hard back of the laminated cupboards.

It fidgeted but, in a second, it pursed and squelching the most miniscule kitten huff swallowed. Yugi's heart came up a little more in his throat, still on a razors edge and watched as hesitantly convinced subject thirteen suckled.

Yugi could barely move. He watched, he listened, felt the tension and the force as it got hungrier and caught onto the rhythm of how to feed.

Tiny, clawed, double jointed feet sat on hairless rabbit legs. It was ugly. As it suckled those petite feet pushed into the palm of Yugi's cradling hand, flexing and padding like a cat on a sofa, expanding tiny muscles as it started to soften all those horrid squirms. It gave another piggish snort, swallowed, and that tiny tail that had greater dexterity than the whole of the body flicked. Yugi wasn't aware of it, had totally forgotten about it, until it wrapped, coiling, round his bottle lofting forearm. He startled, frozen, but squeezing gently before it eased the newborn thing left the sinuous limb hooked round Yugi's arm as it fed.

It was warm, the tail, very gentle unlike the earlier specimens who in bitter, writhing, rages had tried and once succeeded in poisoning Yugi. He knew by then, from the mind numbing autopsies of other specimens, the kind of heart stopping neurotoxin compounded in that injection tip spire now curled coyly, eerily, round Yugi for support. It surprised him, unlaced him, and tilting the bottle back to bring the rest of the slush towards the teat Yugi felt…

He _felt_

**End Note:** As always, have a great weekend guys! Hopefully see you tomorrow for part one of this~


	21. Chapter 21

Tonight _Gambit_ and tomorrow _Suspects and Subjects_! (Not to mention I've written a few chapters of _Fantastic Parallels_ that'll come out after Gambit wraps up hopefully~) This chapter should give you all a little excitement I hope~ not necessarily the good sort.

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE  
(Track- Sailor Moon "Star Locket Theme")

"You have to go," Yugi reminded sullenly into his chest. "The minist-"

"Fuck the Ministry." Yami's fingers curled in his hair, refused to let Yugi untangle from his lap, face buried in the pilot's fringe.

"It wasn't about Horakhty." He whispered.

"I don't care," Yami spat, though Yugi doubted the Emperor believed him. "I'm not leaving you like this. That's never happened. You've never screamed like that."

"It was just a nightmare."

"I don't care," Yami insisted petulantly, and unable to shake his grip Yugi suspected the Emperor was almost hysterical himself.

"I'm okay," Yugi muffled into his neck, he'd stopped shaking at least. "I just… I just want to stop thinking about it. I just want to run and just…"

"Anything."

"Just…" He sighed, pressing in close. "I'll meet the guys at the gym. I'll stay with them all day. I won't be alone. I just… you need to go, it's almost eight…"

"I don't care, I'm the damn Emperor and they _will wait._"

Yugi sighed, slumped into the chest and worrying his hands down the Emperor's arms tried to un-bunch his despondent shoulders.

"You're not to leave them for second." Yami mumbled. "You're to call me. You can entertain yourself in my office all day if you have to everyone else will just have to deal with it."

"Okay," Yugi curled his hands up his back in promise, "I'll call you."

"Good boy," Yami's hand curled in his hair, pressing a firm impassioned kiss to his cheek.

* * *

(Track- repeat)

Yami Sennen, Empress of Cyprus, missed twenty minutes of a ministerial meeting to walk Yugi to their sequestered section of the militant wing. Yugi felt like he was some toddler being dropped off to day care when the knights scrambled to bow and salute Yami upon their joint entrance. The Emperor ignored them, hooked his fingers in the back of Yugi's belt, and whispered soft into his ear that the second he was upset he was to call and make his way to Yami's office.

He evaporated, stalking off, more wraith than man. Imposing to the point that Jou was still nervously stiff and pallid ten minutes after the Emperor had left. He must've asked Yugi three times if they'd done something wrong.

Yugi…

Yugi was glad for it. He needed it. Yami was there to cage and catch him. The firm place to fall kind of. It comforted him and yet he felt in another second as if he was defending the Emperor from the truth of it. Yami must've thought it was a flashback to being defiled by Atem Horakhty who had determinedly refused _Yugi's _attempts to push them into the intimate…He was guilty…

* * *

(Track- Howl's Moving Castle "Peaceful Merry Go Round- Music Box")

Gym had to surrender, lost its splendor, when absent and distant Yugi couldn't focus on the clicks he was choking up. Jou noticed, Otogi noticed, Honda noticed and leaning into the purchase of the treadmill Yugi had suggested they retreat back to his quarters for lunch and to spend the rest of the day in lazy peace. They had leapt at the offer, the invitation, into his home essentially. They had been excited by it.

Next thing Yugi knew he was in a sitting room with the three of them, his sitting room, because he wouldn't dare leave the palace today without Yami's clearance. Though in his mind he had images of the beach and the shore and drowning himself (metaphorically)…

Jou flicked through the TV channels, cooed at Yugi's cable, and settling in the couches around him all three of his loyal subordinates unwound. They were loyal, weren't they? Yugi couldn't find himself doubting them. Rather he found he needed them, wanted them, here to soothe the itch of terror still lingering in his memory. He had this odd impending doom sensation and alongside it was this realization that he had become quite fond of his tagalong teammates. They were balm to the burn of Yugi's sixth sense.

They were comfortable with him in the hours that followed. They picked food from the spread off the table, Jou filled the silence with snorting laughter till he nearly choked and when all else failed all four of them strayed to the TV screen. It was easy. Everything was okay, this was Yugi's life, everything was better.

He jolted, they all did, at the knock.

"Sir," another nervous looking servant boy bowed at the door, "from the Emperor."

Heh, Yugi snorted, sweet man.

"Thanks," Yugi grunted taking the petite wooden box thoughtlessly.

The boy fled, the door clicked shut and casually Yugi sauntered back to where Jou, Honda and Otogi were still bickering on the lounges of his expansive quarters. Everything had been quite expansive for them since Yami had moved them into the Palace. To the Knights at least it must've been Fairy-Tale-esque to be so put above everyone else for the first time in their careers.

Curling his legs under himself Yugi resumed his seat in the corner cushions by the fire. Life was finally comfortable in some previously missing ways however awkward this shift made him. He hadn't imagined he would like hearing their voices beside him, relaxing, as he clicked open a box from the Emperor, from Sennen, his lover yet he did. He warmed strangely inside. The tide started to ebb.

"What ya get?" Joey prodded without really touching him. The blonde was still hesitant of what Yugi could do with his hands. So much so that he knew not to snatch from the elite.

"Hmm…" Yugi flipped back the tiny lid. The box was nice, dark wood, and he almost expected something formal, some kind of jewel, like old courtly kings sent to their mistresses. Instead he found a little note scrawled on a business card and- "Chocolate," he snorted. Sennen was a good man.

"Yum!" Jou whined. "Can I have some?"

"If they're bad," Yugi teased, picking up the business card.

_Have a bite, made me think of you- Y_.

Quick, scrawled, in a few stolen seconds probably between a stream of important venues. It made Yugi smile to himself almost to think he merited the few stolen moments of effort it would require to organize to send this. He kept his head down, his buddy-cop sidekicks didn't need to see him get soft for the Emperor.

He let the box sit in his lap, note shoved back inside haphazardly, and pressing one of the little dark balls to his lips with his index finger bit down. _Hmm_… He popped the second half in and chewed. A dark chocolate exterior, cocoa powder covered, over a milk chocolate centre that felt creamy and mousse like alongside an alcoholic, burning, after tang.

"You're not getting any," Yugi told Jou, licking his teeth as he dug for the second as the first hit his stomach.

"You think we're going to get deployed to Rosa beach?" Honda supposed.

Yugi paused with the second chocolate to his lips, letting it sit back in the box, as he considered it.

"Depends on a couple of things," multiple military factors were involved, and Yugi waited to be invited to explain them. The men probably still wouldn't get it but they wanted to know at least a little how Yugi's mind worked. It was flattering somehow. Yugi supposed they shouldn't make him flattered given it was a greater honour that he would share his though-

_Craaack_

"_Aaah!_" Yugi groaned, wrapping his arms viciously round his stomach. The sound came high and choked like he'd been punched in the face. "Oh!"

"Yug?" Jou leapt back beside him as he curled in.

It was agony, side splitting, like a glass grenade had just gone off inside him. The box fell from his lap. Chocolates stumbled across the wood flooring. Yugi slipped from the couch and hit the floor after them.

"Yug!" Jou screeched and was down beside him trying to twist the smaller onto his back.

Yugi clasped his stomach hard, knees trying to shrivel in, but lost the power to cry out in pain as coughing he felt something thick and warm tumble slickly down his cheek. He caught the metallic smell. Blood.

"Shit!" Honda hollered, Yugi's head spun, "oh my God!"

"Get a doctor!" Otogi now.

Doors slammed, he heard screaming, chaos broke out like lightning and holding him in his lap Yugi was vaguely aware of how Jou swore over and over in a continuous scream. His vision blurred, he fought against the urge to hack, spluttering more blood across the floor as it thickened in his throat.

* * *

(Track- Carter Burwell "Love, Death, Birth")

Yugi woke submerged in a raft of cushions. He knew he wasn't in the Royal Hospital. He recognized the smell of their detergent by now and the scent here was thicker, older, than that in the ICU. The lights were softer, the bedding plush and lush corralling him in. He could feel the drip in his arm, knew from the cotton on his skin he'd been changed and from the ache in his throat suspected his stomach had been pumped. They'd gotten him then before it was too late.

He tried to blink, groggy, surrounded by comfort as his eyes prickled. His pupils found the woven cream ceiling embroidered with plaster flowers. He was still in the Palace? He closed his eyes again. The effort to move a molecule was exhausting. Everything hurt. He felt warmth round his hand, fingers moving in ferreting, hurried, little motions over his. Trying to blink again he let audio come back into focus as he learnt to pay attention to it.

"_-I want to know how and who-_"

Yami…he was growling, grumbling, and Yugi knew from the angry hushed whispers alone that it was the Emperor's hands round his.

"_-It's totally unacceptable, treason. How the hell did someone sneak poison-_"

Poison? Of course, Yugi's lashes beat shut again. Someone must've been trying to assassinate him. It wasn't the first time but that something so insidious would happen now…

"_-They impersonated me. I want them hung, drawn and quartered_-"

They had, hadn't they? That little note in the box and the delivery boy. Someone had pretended to be Yami. They had sent Yugi an attempted murder. Someone had lulled him into a stupid sense of security and had been able to do so with a frightening understanding of how he and Yami spoke to each other and how they felt. Yugi cursed himself. Why had he trusted it so easily? Sennen wasn't the sort to send flowers. He didn't have time these days for something as ridiculous as sending chocolates. Fuck, Yugi was _so _stupid.

Yami's hands squeezed round his. He was still hissing to someone about wrenching whatever poor assassin there was to catch out from the earth.

Yugi managed to tilt his head, even that hurt, and letting his lids part tried to find Yami's face in the low light. He managed it and contented then lay watching the Emperor whisper nasties over his shoulder to what, Yugi caught from the low modulation, was Mahado the new Minister for Defence.

Sennen was handsome when he frowned or was that just because Yugi was so used to having Yami yell at him?

"_I'll be damned if_-" dark indigo eyes wafted suddenly over his face, fingers tightened in layers rounds his singular hand, and the Emperor's voice lowered. "Yugi?"

He blinked. Exhausted.

"Oh thank_ goodness_," Yami hissed under his breath into his own shoulder.

"I'll take care of it Majesty," Mahado whispered.

"Yes, good," the Emperor dismissed flippantly attention zoning back on Yugi.

The pilot heard boots clop on carpet, heard the door delicately click closed, heard soldiers cock their rifles outside…

Yami's hand stayed wrapped round his, while its twin detached to stroke his fringe back, as he leant in over the boy obscuring his vision. Yami smelt older at times like this. He was so much sturdier at this moment. Yugi noticed the years between them and he wished, stupidly, somewhere inside himself that this man would stay with him whenever he was hurt.

"Oh thank everything," Yami fussed, "thank God…"

Did Yami believe in God? Yugi wasn't sure but he was too tired to ask. His throat felt like lead had solidified in his oesophagus.

"Are you alright?" He pressed gently.

Yugi pursed his lips together, eyes closing in a wince, as he tried to moan in the back of his throat. He could barely move his tongue.

"Precious boy," Yami mumbled, thumb rubbing over his forehead, his nose brushing Yugi's as he hunched across he mattress. "God, I thought…for a second my heart exploded. Don't you _ever_ do that to me again."

_Hey!_ Yugi's mind riled as he whined softly._ Don't make this my fault!_

Sennen's lips burrowed into his brow apologetically and near desperation inched out from under the skin of the tenderness. It was apparent Yami was scared.

"I'm going to kill them." Yami hissed. "I swear to God I'm going to _kill _them."

Yugi let his eyes flutter shut, eased, he liked that. He needed to hear that promise. That was his kind of vengeance. Yami stroked his face, held him gently, and swore to decimate whatever insidious parasite had come dangerously close to destroying them. What if Jou and the boys hadn't been there? Yugi had almost had two bites of death. It was weird though… Yugi didn't like court, he didn't like schemers, rather he liked blunt brutality. He didn't want to find the trickster who'd almost slaughtered him. He wanted Yami to put him in a tower and take care of it. He wanted to hide.

Was Yugi getting weak?

* * *

(Track- Aqualung & Lucy Schwartz "Cold")

Eventually, though it hardly took long, Yugi fell asleep. One moment he was glassily flickering his eyes over Yami and the next he was out cold all over. What took longer was Yami's attempt to disentangle himself from the child as he traced every millimetre of one, fragile, little hand for the thousandth time. He couldn't leave. His legs lost consistency. He tried to tell himself, one last stroke and then he would stand but then he glanced over Yugi's sleeping face, lulling exhausted into the bedding, and he couldn't move for another string of minutes.

Yugi looked dreadful.

Yami was barely coherent that any time had passed. All he knew was the shape of Yugi's fingernails under his thumb and the softly ebbing rise and flow of the boy's chest under the blankets. He was alive. God, thank God…Yami pursed his lips and blinked hard through the burn. The frantic phone call, not from Yugi but from medical, the destruction of the day in total, the chaos… his heart had yet to recover from the wrench. He couldn't take this string of bad luck. Were they cursed? Doomed? This hadn't happened before. In all his years in the palace Yugi had never gotten himself into so much uninhibited trouble.

Yami recalled once the immediate hysteria had passed he'd ordered Yugi to be placed in the Empress's quarters as usual. They'd moved medical equipment from the Royal Hospital. There were doctors monitoring his vitals in the next room paid to stay within the four walls as long as necessary. The Knights were being questioned, Mahado had been stripped from his schedule, there were guards in every room of Yami and Yugi's chambers… he'd turned the whole palace upside down for this child and rightly so.

Someone, within his home, had tried to slaughter Yugi.

Someone had almost succeeded.

A little bit more of the bait, a moment too late, if Yugi had been on his own…

They'd come _so_ close.

It had almost been over. The black, gnawing, precipice of death had reared its head and Yami had almost lost in his frantic attempt to snatch Yugi back from it. Who could have possibly…?

There were a million options, none of them pleasant, and none of the rhetoric erased the fact that his Yugi, this precious commodity that was irreplaceable even for the most powerful man in the Empire, had almost been ripped, yanked, out from under his nose. _Again_.

This had been a violent attempt, not just some warning message. Yugi had been poisoned with something the doctors could barely name but that seemed to be _acid_. Someone had tried to_ kill_ him. Not maim but destroy utterly and irrevocably. Someone had tried to_ melt his insides_.

They'd come within hairs of succeeding too.

Yugi had never looked so tiny, so pallid and wrecked and wretched in a much too big bed that might as well have been their consummated marriage. Yami felt…he was…he had been useless. He couldn't fix this immediately any more than the doctors could. He could cut off heads but that might never make them any safer. This was hatred embodied and right within his midst. His child, his lover, his minx, his strumpet, his pilot, his everything… his…Yugi had…

Yami brought a shaking hand over his eyes and the forming curve of his nose.

Should he stop the war? He laughed dryly under his choked breath. Sadly Yugi was probably safer on the field than he was in Yami's own home. Their sanctuary was void. Besides that if Yami stopped the war, excluding every other factor, then the man who might have defiled and tormented and traumatised this same child would get away un-abused. Atem Horakhty needed retribution. Yami could not, in any way, allow the republican to escape. Not after Yugi had woken screaming in his arms.

What if…?

Yami eyed the door, eyed the bed and the babe within and was torn between two fates. Desperate and human he wanted to be here, right here, when Yugi woke next but he couldn't be if he was going to save them or free them.

Quiet, gentle, he untangled his hand from the boy's checking his was tucked snug and pushing strands of hair from Yugi's dry face slunk away.

Yami found the blonde he wanted first and foremost in the hallway outside Yugi's quarters by the guards with their rifles.

"Jou," he clasped his elbow and the Knight shook, "Jounouchi yes?"

"Yes Majesty," he mumbled, white as death.

"I need to go consult with help," Yami whispered close to him, "can you watch him? I don't want him to wake up alone."

"I…" Jou seemed perplexed and awed such a thing had been asked, let alone of him by the Emperor he barely knew, but then comprehension graced those chocolaty eyes. Solemner he nodded gently. "Of course Sir, anything, is he going to be…?"

"He'll live," Yami promised tiredly, "but I need to go make sure whoever did this _suffers_."

"Give em one for me." Jou whispered sternly.

"Thank you," he patted at the young man's shoulder, reassured that Yugi at least would not wake alone.

It was going to be a long, cold, drive the laboratories.

* * *

(Track- Casltevania "Requiem of the Gods")

He'd moved to a bigger office one overlooking the suspension tanks that glowed like liquid nests. One long wall formed little more than an observation window onto the almost radioactive slush. The air rattled through the vents still smelling of the highlands, humming softly, and somewhere on the desk in the far right an old gramophone had been left on to scratch.

"Heba," Yami greeted.

"Hmm?" He twisted on his feet to face him, delicately bare foot, but behind Heba the Emperor could still quite clearly make out the laboratory construction buzzing along behind the observation glass. "Sweet thing…?"

"Someone tried to poison Yugi."

"I know." Heba retorted blandly. Of course he knew. Heba knew everything.

Yami swallowed, puffing out his chest.

"You wouldn't know anything about that would you?"

"Me?" Heba snorted, tilting his head. "Why on earth would I sweetling? Are you actually suggesting…?"

He laughed.

"I…" Yami's heart rolled over. He didn't know anymore. "Would you?"

"Behind your back?" Heba accentuated the detail and shaking his head, as if Yami were some silly child, came forward to lay his hands on the Emperor's biceps pulling them close together. "Never," he emphasised hotly huffing a strand of hair from his face, "_never _sweetling. Why bother? Motou's your weapon. It would be a waste of my time. We need him still and I, frankly, have better things to do."

Yami did acknowledge… He supposed it was true that, for the entirety of his relationship with the pilot, since winning Yugi to their side Heba quite apparently could've cared less, given a rats', about the toing and froing between Yami and Yugi. Yugi was a commodity to Heba, Yami saw, another piece of the machine. Not really worth the attention of twisting so…

"Practical as ever," Yami sighed avoiding his glance as Heba smiled up through those thick lashes to him. He let his idea, that suspicion, go. This strange thing had different focuses.

"Go back," Heba urged with a flippant quirk of his shoulders, thumbs rolling into Yami's clavicle. "Go back to the little thing's bedside if it matters so much. I can handle things here. It doesn't matter for a day. Everything will be managed without you."

"You're not lying to me?" He pressed one last time, eyes locking. "You wouldn't…?"

"No." Heba assured him straight calm smile never wavering. "You have to stop fretting, the stress will kill you. Something useless gets in my hair I'll get rid of it but Motou's very good at staying out of my way."

"I…" He wanted to say it but he couldn't find the strength.

Heba's palm wandered over his cheek and Yami rested himself into it bitterly.

"He almost…I…" he inhaled sharply and Heba's fingers flexed on his opposing bicep with a hush. "I want to do it."

"Take the last step," Heba supposed. "Be here, feel it, feel everything I feel?"

"I want to be able to protect this, what I have, _him._"

"You need to want it for you." Heba warned nonchalantly in the face of Yami's intensity.

He swallowed.

"I want to be all powerful. I want to slaughter my enemies."

Heba's lips quirked upward tightly but his eyes sparkled.

"That'll work."

The witch's hands settled at the top of his spine, fingers laced, thumbs pressing into the join of skull and spine without Heba's body every really touching his. His hands were cool, smooth, yet inescapable. Tiny and steely the fingers didn't really seem to properly exist but that smile, those eyes, that hunger squatting ready-

Yami felt it coming, couldn't look away, but didn't know what to expect.

White noise flooded Yami's ears, like a broken radio on no frequency, drowning out the old gramophone and distress rose up through him infectiously as he locked his eyes on Heba. He spoke but Yami couldn't hear. The lips pressed and parted.

_Let me…into your…_

Yami's vision blurred and came back.

His heart started to race. The animal in him wanted to wrench free and run at the press of something distinctly not him, more than just human, pressing in on his consciousness. Heba's hands however never wavered, steely on his scruff, and would not be dislodged. A petite, beautiful, bear trap. Those lips…

_Don't…afraid…_

Yami's chest contracted in. The rush of the upcoming wave hit him.

His synapses _exploded_. Veins of electric thought split asunder to overflow. He lost any recognition of his senses as an all-consuming rush of endorphins pumped in emergency from his central nervous system. Like heaven pushed through a tea strainer and for a brutal, brilliantly white, moment Yami thought he was dying.

_Become… with me… _

* * *

(Track- Dmitri Shostakovich "Waltz No. 2")

Mokuba pushed with his fork till the silver tip scrapped horribly along the plates between patches of cuisine. He was a rat in a cage. How long had they even been here for now? He had the calendar, the news, the papers… no internet but nonetheless if he wanted to know he could've counted. He just didn't really want to know. He was going to read every book in the tower at this rate, Seto already had, and if he was right he'd essentially failed his Philosophy course now being unable to research or hand anything in. How long till his friends forgot about him or became new loyalists to Sennen? How long till they said; _'Oh yeah I knew one of the fake princes!'_

It was disgraceful. It was either sit here, wasting away and trapped, or consent to a life entirely under Sennen's authority. Hell Mokuba wouldn't be able to marry without his approval if he consented. Besides that he wasn't leaving Seto.

Seto who seemed to be going mad…

He'd read everything they had. He'd never much liked meals either so without that tedium to entertain him while Mokuba pushed at expensive steak Seto paced incessantly. He'd been drawing schematics, plans, engineering things Mokuba didn't understand. It was possibly, Seto thought, the most creative he'd ever been necessity being the mother of invention and all.

Unfortunately he had nowhere to build and nowhere to test and a Seto Kaiba unable to complete a project was a miserable creature. He'd crack under this. If it wasn't for his unending stubbornness Seto might've cracked weeks ago. He didn't care about marriages or crowns he but he did care distinctly about his machines. If Sennen kept Seto from them much longer he just might fall apart.

Seto mumbled, tightly wound to spring, and paced all the way across the room to find the remote. Exactly seven pm meant news and Seto was nothing if not exact. His OCD was possibly the second most likely thing to give them away.

Seto paused with the plastic in hand as rifles clicked over with the guards outside. Mokuba and Seto exchanged tenuous looks as fierce muffling broke out and mere moments later the locks slid over. Company? Sennen even? Mokuba's gut twisted in disgust at the idea.

The pottering gruff looking old man who let himself in didn't make Mokuba feel any better.

"Mister Kaiba," he found Seto, turning in his portly too-tight waist coat.

"And you are?" Seto extended to his full height proudly. He'd been raised a prince.

"Mister Yumiza." He gave a little tip of his chin but refused to bow. On instinct Mokuba was offended. "I am here to inform you, in the name of the Crown, that you are under arrest and will hence forth wait for trial here till it pleases his Majesty the Emperor."

"What for?" Mokuba baulked.

"Fraud, conspiracy, treason, and the attempted murder of his Grace Yugi Motou."

"_Excuse me?_" Mokuba railed, pushing out of his seat.

"Someone tried to _kill_ Yugi?" Kaiba blinked dazedly.

"His Majesty will grant you access to legal counsel at his leisure."

* * *

(Track- Howl's Moving Castle "Merry Go Round of Life" music box)

Yugi woke again, fading in and out of real consciousness, at intervals. His body was in shut down. Even that pesky subconscious of his had turned off to focus every institution within the boundaries of his skin on survival. Any millimetre of motion spread through him a throbbing, diabolical, ache with the poison's claws still in his system.

He was aware, though he couldn't find enough strength to open his eyes, that at one point Jou was muffled nearby him. The knight was whispering something, something vague and hoarse but the tone was warm, familiar, and assured he had back up Yugi drifted off again into the sticky pit of pain killers and survival flooding hormones overwhelming his strength.

Another point drifted in. Vague blobby dreams of distorted colours and lights like an old impressionist painting from the National Gallery he'd been dragged through more than once. They wafted through him, made him uncomfortable, but restless from the inability to see clearly or hear clearly in them Yugi still was unable to move without pain.

At different points sounds seemed incredibly clear. Once the bed was so submerged, snug, Yugi barely knew what to do except that he was at peace as if he was in his own coffin. Then he could hear the drip of pain killers or the saline.

Then, later, the heart monitor trilling incessantly on low assured him he was alive. It did so in such a way that, unable to think or twitch, he counted the beeps and lost his place five or six times before reaching thirty. Just to know he was awake.

Then the press of the nodes on his skin, or the dig of the drip needles into him, or the catheter…all felt too harsh. He wanted to move onto his side, to scratch, but could barely do more than breathe.

Scarcely then it was no surprised he thought of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and a million other useless fevered delusions. The other delusions were worse: the word _Paraxia-Pura_, Yami's fingers over his shoulder blade and the Emperor's kiss on his belly, Atem's hand up his spine, the rain, the leaves, the ocean… he missed the ocean…

"Yugi," smooth tips ran over the back of his palm then took his hand, "you awake?"

Yami…

It took three breaths for Yugi to open his eyes. He'd never felt so helpless.

"There you are," the Emperor leant in, squeezing his palm.

Yugi's lips parted, barely, and a croaked sound escaped but syllables didn't follow.

"_Shh_," he hushed absently, "doctor's tell me you might not be able to speak for a few days."

Yugi's lips fell back together, _just great, _He really was helpless.

"Everything's fine," Yami's seemed to catch the tension wetting his eyes, knuckles brushing his cheek. He was so calm, so effortlessly at peace and confident Yugi couldn't help but take cues. It was almost unnatural. "Nothing will happen. The pain will fade. Your voice might take the longest to heal, the acid came back up when you tried to wretch, but you'll be back to normal in a matter of weeks. Knowing how stubborn you are probably less."

Yugi groaned. He wanted to communicate desperately but-

"The Knights will be leading your guard for now." How did Yami know everything rolling through his head? Knuckles traced his cheek bones. "There will be one of them stationed with you at all times until you can move again."

His brows twitched weakly and Yami's thumb ran over his forehead, rubbing the curve of his nose in lazy, soothing, motions. He was so confident, so relaxed, what had…?

"We're weeding out those responsible." Yami promised. "A little push down the right line of evidence and Mahado has five arrests already. Kaiba made a move it seems."

Kaiba? Why would Seto…?

"It's never going to happen again."

_How did you get so calm? What happened? What did I miss?_

"No hospitals," Yami whispered over him, and Yugi's spine uncoiled without his consent at the subconscious fear. "You'll be here the whole time, with family, and then this run of bad luck of ours will be over for good."

_Why would Seto try and kill me? That doesn't make sense…  
_

"Then we're going to kill Horakhty and end the war." The Emperor swore mildly, kissing his petrified in place form briefly in a strange gesture, smiling with all that same adoration and tenderness but without the panicked brutality Yugi had accustomed himself to. "Then you and I are going on with our lives in peace."

_Atem…God Atem…Please…_

Yugi felt himself drifting, floating, and he was losing the grasp of the harsh edge of consciousness. He felt his vision glaze as his lids fluttered in the struggle to stay open and stroking his hair Yami mumbled gently to lull him back off into the daze.

"It's alright," he pushed sweetly, "I'll take care of everything. I promise."

_Something's not_…

* * *

(Track- Spirited Away "Sixth Stop")

In Bohemia they'd decided to make camp and reach base in the morning. Bakura had wandered, because he tended to, and Malik, despite his determination, had collapsed to sleep before anyone else. Atem supposed, like Rishid conferred, that it was because Malik was so young. Being out like this was exhausting, even Atem was wasted but he couldn't seem to… The others were already snoring and he should've been kicking scorpions in the sand himself by now.

Why was he thinking about it tonight? Was it just because he missed Yugi? He missed Yugi constantly. Atem slumped back into his bedroll by the fire, camping out on duty with his gaggle of shambled pilots, and met the stars overhead as the sand twisted underneath him. He swallowed, eyes dry and hands cold. There'd been some report on the radio about an accident in the palace.

'Accident'

God he hated that word.

Atem's childhood fractured at one point. Everything was fine, beautiful, but he had the niggling sense as a boy that something was wrong. He was oversensitive. He cried once when two kids, totally unrelated to him, said they didn't like each other anymore. Hair pin trigger Atem used to have, he used to be shy, he used to cry at birthdays because he didn't want to '_get old and die_' as he put it. He thought now, as a man, that it was his mother's influence.

She fractured his memory. He remembered before her death hazily though at times he could recall perfect details of her and her face and her smell and her laugh. Then afterwards was perfectly clear to him. Likewise his dad as he existed in Atem's memory seemed split by memories of his mother. Before her death what Atem remembered of his father was so totally opposite to what he remembered of his father after her death. Before her death Atem remember his father was a serious man, with private smiles, but then from after her death, after they must've moved to the country from the city Atem vaguely recalled, he was a carefree man who laughed loudly and shaved rarely. It was strange.

The exact details of her death were messy.

He remembered his dad said it was an accident but Atem always felt strangely cheated by that choice of words as if it didn't do her justice. He felt like that was cheating her of her glory somehow. When he was little, before the word _suicide_, he had this weird thing where he used to tell people that she'd '_lost a fight with a bad guy_'. His dad thought it was adorable but Atem had always taken it so seriously.

Even now he felt it, felt like she'd lost in a battle, with every fibre of his heart even if he didn't recall it.

He had this dream…This horrible…

He was tiny, if he pushed at his memory, but maybe not so small as he expected. Maybe he'd been ten? He remembered, senselessly, that he'd woken up from a bad dream and he'd been afraid to go sneak into his father's office while he was working. His father had an important job, he remembered, so he had gone to her room instead.

Why did he remember his parents having different bedrooms? His Dad, the farmer high school dropout, with an important job in the city? His Dad who he never called 'Father'? What…?

He…

Atem remembered pushing at her door, standing just behind the lip of the wood, half in the hallway and half in the room because she wasn't in bed like he expected. She was at her desk, hands in her lap, sagged, brow resting on the edge of the wood.

She was crying.

"_Stop…_" It was the most pathetic moan Atem had ever heard. Agonising. "Get out of my head…"

A sob, a horrible sob… her lips apart to cry messily…

"_Please_- I don't…" She moaned high, like a little girl. "No… I-I'm sorry…_get out_…I don't want…My _baby_…"

She drew in a breath, choked, made a horrible little squeak of pain and fear and-

Stopped.

Abruptly fell silent.

She inhaled, slow and steady and composed suddenly leant back straight in her chair.

She hummed, an easier garden part motion crept into her hand and Atem had watched fascinated.

"_Ring around the rosies pocket full of posies…_" she sighed, her head back, her eyes closed in the perfect image of composure even with the tear streaks veining her cheeks. "_A tissue, a tissue…_"

Her hand drifted casually over the desk, took something in hand, and came back into her lap.

It clicked.

Safety off.

"_We all…_" she laughed softly, "_fall down Sweetling…_"

One shot.

000

1 I'm sure you all have one guess as to who poisoned Yugi but you've got to ask yourself: if Heba hasn't cared about Yugi's existence till now_ why _does he care now? Was it him?

2 "His Grace" is Yugi's regal prefix. Those titles depend on rank. Yugi's a '_Grace_' because he's essentially a '_Grand Duke_'. Grand Dukes are traditionally for the most part the brothers of Crown Princes/Emperors. Yugi gets that rank because he's an adopted sibling. Yami/Gozaburo would've given him that rank though as a reward he wouldn't have been entitled to it by blood. (If you want more details on rank structure and prefixes google "peerage".)

3 Atem's memories of his mother's suicide are strange. His memories of Turtle Village and before her death don't totally align. We'll put that all together soon~

**HINT SONG GAME**

Hey guys. This week I'm including some vital hint song but instead of giving you the singer and name I'm going to give you a lyric and let you track down the ones you want~

Heba/Yami Hint: "_but in your future for you I see is exactly the man you always wanted to be_"  
Heba **VS **Yami Hint: "_don't you threaten me son, you got a lot of gall, we gonna do things my way or we won't do things at all!_"  
Yugi VS Heba Hint: "_I see you have the courage, dear, but skill is what you need!_"  
Yugi/Atem Hint: "_upon this earth there's no one like him. He sees the girl I long to be making even me believe in me._"

**NEXT TIME**: Mana finds _7-13 Omega_, Yami discovers something called The Underground, there's a chance for the truth to come out and Yugi quickly discovers he's still in terrible, terrible, danger.


	22. Chapter 22

Okay, well, I can now officially guarantee weekly updates up until the final (now written) chapter 32! We've only got ten chapters left~ please enjoy!

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

(Track- Maroon 5 "One more night")

Yugi got used to the rhythm of Yami pacing at the end of his bed over the next two or three days till the pain killers were receded and stiffness left his limbs. Yugi could hear him in the pitch of the night, in the middle of the day, just wading back and forth in pace with the heart monitor. He mumbled, Yugi assumed, into an ear piece about new response suits and politics. Trapped between his own eyelids the pilot found it nearly comforting to know he was close whispering instructions to the nation but he kept hearing '_Heba_' roll off Yami's tongue. It unsettled.

Yami came, he left, at what seemed to be all hours of the day and night and when Yugi was taken off the heart monitor, when he could sit again, something tangible had changed in the air. Things were humming smoothly round him, the guards stood a little straighter, but the Emperor never stilled nor did he ever seem to want to. Yami was buzzing, sonic, under the skin with some kind of force which imposed and empowered. Yugi was nearly intimidated when Yami left him to Jou's care, came back at eight, then left at midnight. The hell was he doing at all hours?

Yugi's throat was still burnt, his voice barely an imagining, but they assured him it would return. After a handful of blurry days bleed into clarity as the painkillers were lowered to a degree that kept him coherent Yugi started to feel like he could move again. He pushed up in the bed but didn't have much strength. They kept him on a drip rather than try and make him eat as opportunity to help his throat heal between swallowing's of dreadful tasting antiseptics. It was a tedious, childish, set of memories brought back to life. When Yugi was eight he'd refused to eat Imperial food for so long they'd chained him to a drip bag for a week. The memory was creeping. He hated how food felt still.

Uneasy he found enough energy to carry himself out of bed eventually. It must've been Friday by now. He could hear Yami on the phone in the office in the next room and hobbling leant into the steel pole on rollers that held the drip bags. Fuck he hated when he was weak.

He managed to make it to the door. He was determined enough for that. Yami seemed to be doing three things in harmonious unity. He was totally unruffled and with a glance the Emperor spotted him.

"Hold," He ordered whoever was chattering calm and bold, tilting. "Are you alright Yugi?"

Something…

He seemed darker in the shade of his eyes, gone somehow, straight and nearly predatory like he'd transformed while Yugi was sleeping. Yugi had the eeriest sensation, the horrible grief, that he'd lost something. He nodded his head. That stupid urge to have Yami rile protectively was supressed under eerie uncertainty in those eyes. Yami looked different, he said his name differently, distantly.

"You can take yourself back I assume?" One of Yami's hands was still lulling over the keyboard though his eyes barely left Yugi.

He nodded curtly.

"Good boy," Yami pressed his ear piece again, "you were saying?"

Nothing.

* * *

(Track- Breaking Dawn Score "Love, Death, Birth")

Yugi woke at two am to find Yami sitting on the edge of the bed, stroking his back, nails wandering up and down his spine through his shirt. The fuck was he doing up…? Yami heard him yawn-moan and kissed his temple. He felt softer, those lips were familiar. Yugi blinked over his shoulder and found brighter eyes.

"I'm sorry," Yami rubbed the small of his back, "I didn't get a chance to steal away to see you today."

_Yes you did…? _

Yugi was groggy and resented his own inability to speak.

"Doctors told me you could start wandering a little," Yami shrugged, folded over him as Yugi lay on his stomach. The Emperor had one arm round his waist, leaning into another curled round Yugi's resting head, bringing their noses close. "Maybe tomorrow if you're up to it. Don't push yourself."

_I did_…Yugi croaked a little. _You were there you saw, I know, I remember…_

Yami chuckled.

"I know, you probably think you can run already, eh?" He supposed playfully. "No gym. I'll be working all day I think."

Yugi nodded dumbly.

"Should I stay?" Yami murmured. "I can't hold you. I don't want to risk pulling anything out."

Yugi nodded, whined a little, and the Emperor pressed his lips almost too hard into Yugi's. Either way Sennen slunk in beside him carefully and in an exhausted heap slumped unconscious, breathing steady, back to back with the pilot moments later. It was like the Emperor had split. Was Yugi remembering things that weren't happening?

* * *

(Track- Beauty and the Beast Soundtrack "Prologue")

Yami stalled at his keyboard, blinked, and spun a little round the room, roving, when did he…? He slumped back, fumbling his temple. What had he been doing? He remembered crawling into bed with Yugi, waking up, he remembered the meeting at ten with the Ministry then leaving the throne room then…

It was three in the afternoon already? When did he get back to his office? He remembered…last time he checked his watch it was noon…

Yami took a breath, shook in the exhale, and pressing at his temple carefully assessed that at least this time he didn't have a migraine. It was okay, he told himself, and checking the screen found his hands had just finished something he'd been working on for a while. A quick peruse showed everything looked in order and glancing over his paperwork across the desk found little notes scrawled from Heba to sign post where he was up to. Thank mercy the little witch knew to keep him up to speed. Yami eased. It was just teething time. It would be fine. Heba would keep everything smooth while he adjusted to the influx. A few splotchy days were nothing.

He turned back to the screen, steadied himself, and wondered vaguely if he'd eaten all day. He'd get a coffee later. Just a few more weeks and Heba would finish the Z0-RC and they'd be done. Yami had a stack of reforms in the pipe line with his signature that just needed a little more time and would receive an influx of funding once he picked the economic remains of Bohemia apart.

The intercom buzz made him jump. He was too tense.

"Yes?"

"Majesty," Vivian chimed, "Miss Magi is here to see you."

Mana.

"Let her in," Yami eased, slackening.

Mana looked very classy a little dressed up. In whatever run around had been consuming her she'd switched from her usual A-line skirt to dress pants (that was one of the things Yami quite liked about her. She fought against the classic pencil skirt by being a little more flouncy) and flats. Lovely blouse today too. Yami would admit, quietly mind, that he rather appreciated fashion.

"Morning Mana," he greeted, "you're looking lovely today."

"Hey," she smiled breathlessly, arms heavy with documents. She'd been rifling through documents for him since the coronation. "You got a minute?"

"Of course, is it urgent?"

"Exception-_fucking_-ally."

Yami blinked pushing aside his keyboard to beckon her closer.

"By all means, are you alright?"

"I'm just…" She ran her hand through her uncombed hair which looked somehow pleasant thick and tangled. "I've been up all night reading. I'm…I found something _sick."_

"Sit, sit," Yami beckoned. "What is it?"

"Gozaburo had a research division called The Underground. He closed it down a few years ago; converted it to the Outer Labs Division. They," Mana swallowed throwing a pile of files haphazardly over his desk hard, "they were_ fucking_ evil. I think-No, they were experimenting on living things."

"What exactly are you implying?" Yami proposed. "That they made an organism?"

"No I think they _found _one." She clarified in jitters. "I think they were preforming live experiments on something."

She thrust a USB into his hand and plugging it into his laptop Yami flickered through the files on his desktop, dragging down the screen, back and forth between paper and electronics and flittering frowned.

"Why don't you show me what you mean Mana," he offered twisting the laptop towards her, "why on earth would you think that? You're sure these files are legitimate?"

"Took them out of the vault myself in HQ," she swore, bending in. "See look. They have experiment files: _human comparable healing rate…blood transfusions proved successful…responsive to penicillin…increased motor function and response time…rising IQ…_"

"Yes well that could be said for myself and horses," Yami shrugged, "doesn't mean Gozaburo had some alien sequestered somewhere."

"But look!" Mana insisted. "They have a psychological evaluation!"

Fingers dancing, conscious she was losing him, Mana brought up the file and began scrolling. It was exhaustive certainly.

"_Experiments 1-16 Subject awoken; appears distressed and unresponsive. PSTD confirmed. Regression therapy commenced_…" She lowered the screen again, pointing. "_Recommended active experimentation recommence…Experiments 16-30 subject appears docile, cautious… Experiments 30-45 subject increasingly hostile, unsociable, IQ increasing rapidly, response rates superhuman… Recommend discontinue testing…Recommended off facility socialization and cultural incorporation…Custody deferred to…._"

"What on earth…?" Yami mumbled, taking the device back, scrolling briskly. "Deferred to who?"

"_Data expunged_," Mana quoted sickly, "but given the weights they took I think it was a child."

"A child?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "I think anyway or a pigmy."

"Where'd they find this thing?"

"During the excavation into deep sea ruins, off Imperial shore lines, about twelve or more years ago…"

"Christ…" He hissed, collecting himself. "Alright, figure out where it is now. _Quietly_."

"Yes Majesty."

"Thank you Mana."

She forced a smile. This must've kept her up all night. Yami stood to help her rearrange the files when-

"Wait," it flowed out of Yami's mouth, "no…"

"Sir?" Mana tilted.

"Leave this with me," Yami changed his order, respreading the sheets in his hands. "I think I've seen something about this before. I want to double check."

"Sure," she consented sheepishly, laying the sheets down. "Can I help in anyway?"

"No, not yet," he shook his head solemnly insides tightening. "This is all massively helpful though Mana, seriously, you might just have solved the mystery of the decade."

"Is it…do you think it's okay…?" Yami blinked, raising his chin and found she was aching in her eyes.

"I…" he smiled tightly, brows cresting. "I think it's just fine. I think I still employ it."

Time to get answers.

* * *

(Track- Beauty and the Beast Soundtrack "West Wing")

Yami hated the outer laboratories; too much radiation, too many adoring and exhausted scientists pestering round Heba's office. Frankly he found it merciful that since giving Heba complete control of the facility his intervention and presence had been utterly unnecessary on site. All the better considering in a few more weeks Heba appeared ready to have the mammoth, impossible, Z0-RC project complete. Ten years ahead of schedule of course.

"Majesty," a researcher scuttled back from Heba's desk head down, excusing himself.

"Sweet thing," Heba purred up from his computer, all aglow. He always seemed brighter here. "What do I owe the honour of this visit too? Want to inspect your latest toy?"

"We need to talk."

Their eyes met for a moment.

"Well?" Heba snorted. He was so utterly un-phased by anything that ever vacated Yami's mouth. All the Emperor could glean was to make Heba's eyes glance down as he slapped the folder on the desk.

"_Subject 7-13 Omega._" Yami prefaced. "Start explaining."

"I wondered when you'd find that," Heba laughed, settling back in his seat to turn dismissively to his laptop though his fingers never touched the keys. "Interesting isn't it?"

"Enlightening," Yami corrected, he would not be deferred on this. Not now. Not now he finally had the truth or a truth that seemed more reasonable than what he'd been using. "It's you, isn't it? You're some non-human thing Gozaburo found under the sea. He reared you to build him advanced super weapons. Am I getting warmer?"

Heba scoffed.

"Fleshling," he purred, eyes lifting briefly. "As exciting as that conspiracy sounds it's void. That's not my file."

"What…?" He faltered.

Heba smirked.

"It's not," he repeated languishing the syllables, "_my _file."

"Y-you're…" their eyes met. Pieces met. "He…"

Yami found himself turning, snatching up the file again.

"Have fun!" Heba called singsong after him as if he were some boy on a scavenger hunt.

* * *

(Track- Pan's Labyrinth "Official Inedit")

He'd started moving and eating more. His was, slowly, trying to come back.

Yugi clustered the blankets round himself and sunk into the couch. He still felt like royal shit. Until his body started moving without agony he was going to have to hide in Yami's quarters having sick days. He fucking loathed the entire experience. Still, the Emperor's quarters weren't unfriendly. It was better than being in a hospital. They were warm, humane, normal. The cushions and the sheets smelt like Sennen when Yugi turned his nose into them.

There was a fluster in the hallway, Yugi snuggled down, probably Jou again with illicit foodstuffs Yugi wasn't supposed to be having during his recovery. Fucking doctors thought Yugi was going to go off chocolate because of one psycho assassin. Besides at this rate he trusted food that came through Jou's hands more than anything which came from the kitchens in the palace. Yugi had been flushing most of the meals, living off a stack of protein bars and vitamin pills under his bed in old luggage in the Empress' quarters he could sneak back and forth too. Call him paranoid but now he fucking deserved to be.

Yugi was going to survive.

The door shuttled open, rattled in a smack, and Yugi pushed himself up. They had double doors in the Emperor's quarters. It was a tradition thing about archways and religion and guns or something. He didn't pay much attention to history.

He did pay attention to Sennen though.

"Yami," he rasped over the back of the couch, trying to catch his voice and push it up back to normal but he was still struggling with it.

The Emperor locked them in.

Probably another tantrum. What now? Atem Horakhty had grown wings and was claiming to be the second coming of Christ? Just what they needed and not something Yugi would doubt knowing their luck. Worse, was Sennen himself today or that Sennen who looked like Yami but was cold…?

"Yugi," Yami came round the back of the couch, threw a stack of manila on the coffee table and didn't lean to kiss him. "We have a problem."

"What else is new?" He croaked, tugging the blankets up. He always felt so vulnerable in pjs.

"I need you to be honest with me."

_Shit_.

"About what?" Yugi frowned sceptically. Could it be as simple as '_No honey, you don't look fat_' for once?

"Gozaburo had something called _7-13 Omega_."

"The fuck…?" Yugi blinked.

_Nonono_-

"It was something to do with live experimentation," Sennen elaborated, "on something."

_The Underground_.

"So?" Yugi shot tartly. "I'm sick. What? Do you want me to go hunting?"

"What do you know about it?"

"Nothing," he grunted. _Lie_. _Lie your ass off_.

"Yugi I'm serious," Yami snapped. "This is huge."

"The fuck are you talking about?" Yugi snapped, shuffling up and into the corner of the couch. _Get mad it's your defence. Look normal_. "What the fuck do you think I should know about this bullshit?"

"Was it you?"

"_Me?_" He hissed. "Are you crazy?"

_So apparently you haven't known all this time._ His voice broke from the anger and the burn in his throat that still lingered from the poison. It had been an acid, something nasty. Unable to stop himself Yugi was thrown into a wracking cough.

"I want to know."

"Sennen," Yugi snapped, still clutching his neck. "I don't know who you've been gossiping with but I don't know crap about any Frankenstein experiments. I was _adopted_."

_I think. Part of me thinks they grew me in a tube_.

"From where?" Yami demanded voice creeping up.

"I don't know!" He shot back fiercely hoarse and barely above a whisper. "I was eight! My parents died in a Republican air bomb on the border. I hit my head, got buried under rubble, I haven't been able to remember shit before that since!"

_I woke up in a laboratory in some horrible glass thing full of sticky fake amniotic fluid. I thought I was drowning. I don't remember anything before that, just lots of fuckers in white coats prodding me and being scared. Is that really what you want me to tell you? Do you want me to stop being a person?_

"Why did Gozaburo want you?"

"I don't know!" Yugi moaned. "I did good on some tests! Some goons from the capital came to the hospital to check me out and ask a fuck load of questions! I got adopted and they put me in combat training and moved me into the palace with you lot! You were there!"

_They decided to move me out of The Underground because I'm a prodigy, born to pilot, unstoppable. When I wouldn't co-operate with them any more they let me out because of the potential destructive capabilities. Gozaburo held it over my head for years that he'd send me back without ever saying it. Didn't have to threaten: if I stop being useful, I will go back and it will be worse than death, simple consequence. _

"I can have you tested," Yami warned viciously, snatching the file up in his hands. "Genetic cross checking. They have the whole DNA sequence in here for their non-human entity."

"Do it then!" Yugi spat.

_Don't. Please. I'll never forgive you and you'll never trust me again_.

Yami inhaled, shoulders taunt, and throat searing Yugi couldn't erase the magma out of his systems. Panic overlapped to form fury in defence.

"Where'd you even find that shit?" Yugi snapped. "Who are we verifying this witch hunt with huh?"

"In Gozaburo's top secret documents."

"Oh yeah," Yugi scoffed, "you're right. That's _so_ believable. Sure, of course, I must be a fucking alien or something then. If one of Gozaburo's lackeys says so it _must_ be true!"

"I…" Yami paused, sighed, and darkly turned back to the sheets prized between his harsh fingers.

_Does it say where I came from in there? Did they make me? Did they find me? Did I have a mother? Did someone ever just love me? _

Yami sighed, moaned nearly, shoulders falling and met Yugi's eyes.

Yugi never wavered from his face.

He turned back to the sheets, snorted.

"You're right," he scoffed weakly. "This is ridiculous…"

Yugi took a breath.

Yami's eyes said something else but he didn't know what.

"Christ," the Emperor messaged the bridge of his nose bitterly, file sagging in one hand as he turned to take a step or two.

He sighed, Yugi's spine coiled, Sennen glanced to the sheets again, flicking through them and shaking his head contemptuously tossed the whole bundle into the fire.

Yugi sagged.

Gone. It was all gone. What and where and who was _burning_. No one would ever know. No one else would ever know about TU or 7-13 Omega. Yugi was…

Free.

_Free_.

Right between his fingers, Yugi had it after more than eight years, and he held the blankets tighter trying to keep the victory out of his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Yami sighed, rolling his shoulders. His chin came up, head back, to gaze at the ceiling before his eyes fluttered closed. "It doesn't matter."

"You need a vacation." Yugi rasped, voice wrecked, tart and supposedly displeased.

"I do," the Emperor agreed, pushing off the mantle of the fire place to saunter towards him.

Yugi flinched back into the corner of the seat on reflex. Yami leant with one hand on the back of the couch and gently, as he had a thousand times, pressed his lips against Yugi's cheek bone.

"I'm sorry," he repeated lazily, anger faded as he rose. "I'll see you at dinner."

"Yeah," Yugi whispered, heart still fluttering _thump-thump_.

"I'll have someone get you something for your throat," Yami assured, "it doesn't hurt too much I hope?"

"No thanks to you," he mumbled.

Another kiss to his temple, a sigh, and Yami was gliding to the door.

"Someone will be up in a minute then."

Yugi's stomach turned.

"H-hey!" He called, twisting in the seat, grasping the back of the couch in tiny tense fingers as _his _file smouldered beautifully into ashes. Yami paused. "Sorry…"

"Don't be," Yami dismissed, glancing over him. "Feel better little one. I'll see you tonight."

"Okay…" He whispered, sinking, heady with nerves and giddiness and lingering fear.

* * *

(Track- continue)

"How'd it go?" Heba smirked into the windowsill.

Yami fixed his watch.

"I decided it doesn't matter."

Heba twitched a fraction, glanced over him, then turned away plum, hungry, irises widening and contracting tightly.

"He's your whore," Yami's witch dismissed.

"He is," the Emperor asserted with a strange firmness towards him, "so it's settled. I don't have time to chase ghost stories and fairy tales."

"You know," Heba murmured as an aside, "I don't lie to you."

* * *

(Track- "Somebody I used to know" Petatonix)

Yugi knew he was twitching at the table but he couldn't seem to stop himself. Yami ate, insufferably calm and distant, but caught between the food he didn't so much as trust himself to play with and the snow falling against the windows Yugi couldn't find peace. The file was burnt in the hearth. In a weird attempt to solidify it within himself Yugi had even scraped up the ashes while Yami was gone but he still…

Freedom, new trust, peace, anxiety all still mingled and clashed.

Yugi had lost the framework which held his universe in place finally. Gozaburo's threat of throwing him in The Underground was gone because if Yugi was to believe Sennen then the new Emperor didn't believe a word of it. So now the mechanism which kept him fighting at his best but likewise protected him in a bizarre way was gone but, as always, Yugi could never vocalise it. He didn't even know what there was to vocalise.

"You ought to eat," Yami chided, sipping.

Since when had they started having dinner together? It seemed so fifties Yugi could hardly believe he was here. Who was he even looking at? Sennen had been a presence in his life for years but he…looking at him now Yugi felt like he'd never seen him before, barely knew him, like Sennen and Yami couldn't be the same person; his. If he knew where Sennen stood on The Underground then, finally, he could trust him completely.

Yugi pushed out of his seat. He was still sore but he fought it like he'd fought worse and slipping outside the little round café style table arranged near the French windows overlooking the gardens he came to Yami. The Emperor glanced, put his drink down and throwing his knee over Yami's thighs Yugi planted himself astride in his lap.

Yugi's fingers tangled over his cheeks, coiling into his hair, mouth folding their lips into each other with a wet press. Yugi pushed, trying not to appear desperate, and smoothly Yami's arms fastened low, easy, and snug round his hips. It was a casual gesture, one palm against the small of Yugi's back warmly and the pilot felt too small when Yami kissed soft like that. It was so unconcerned, so gentle in its response, that Yugi felt his heart rate flutter in a dreadful way.

He ceased, their lips fell apart, and unsatisfied entirely by Yami's casualness Yugi brushed his hands between them to find the Emperor's belt.

"Hmm?" Yami murmured. "What…?"

"_I want you_," Yugi whispered, not that he could raise his voice any higher regardless.

"You're still sick," the Emperor sighed, thumb stroking the small of his back.

"I'm fine," he insisted, lips pursing.

Yami clasped his ferreting fingers before Yugi could unfasten his trousers drawing his hands firmly between the Emperor's own.

"What's wrong?" Yami whispered.

Yugi's eyes wavered down.

"I…" he swallowed. "I just feel…kind of useless. I haven't been able to pilot and…"

"Of course not, someone tried to kill you," Yami dismissed. "Someone put _acid_ in your food."

"Or with you and…" Yugi alluded weakly.

"Me?" The Emperor repeated.

Well, if Yugi wasn't pleasing him somehow what was he good for anymore? How was he safe? If Yami stopped wanting him, if he wasn't special, he didn't even have the laboratory to take him back anymore. In a horrible way that dark security net was gone. Even dissection was better somehow, Yugi found, than being abandoned.

"I don't want you to do this just for me." Yami warned gently. "You started this for you. I like that." _I like you selfish_.

"But…" Yugi shook his head.

The Emperor grasped Yugi's fingers in between his, one handed, the free roaming digits coming to curl under Yugi's chin and bring them back together.

"What…?"

It was so hard to speak when they were nose to nose like this.

"You still want me?"

_Right? Even after all this time? _ Yugi pushed his lips back together. He didn't want them warble.

Yami frowned, paused, and seemed to crest confusion.

"Of _course_ I still want you," he whispered, hands fastening hard round Yugi's upper arms. "You have no idea…"

"Yeah…?" Yugi butted their noses together cautiously.

"_Always,_" Yami professed, fingers flexing to squeeze.

"I'm sorry," He trilled weakly, resting his forehead into the Emperor's.

"I'm sorry too." The elder repeated with equal sympathy.

"I just…" Yugi snorted through a wince. "I'm not exactly a saint."

"Do you want me?" Yami supposed, nose tilting against Yugi's.

"Yeah, still," he murmured sincerely. It was amazing. He slept in the same bed with this man, actually slept-slept, between nightmares, and…Yugi swallowed.

"I don't know why you like me." The Emperor shrugged.

"I just do."

"And I think you're perfect." Yami emphasised. "For me anyway."

Yugi's head slumped down, cheek falling into the grove of his shoulder, brow along the Emperor's neck and jaw all tenderness and…Yugi nuzzled absentmindedly with Yami's hands on his elbows and buried himself closer. Why did this make him want to cry?

"Can I have you tonight?" Yugi breathed, eyes opening into the skin before closing to soak up the scent.

"You don't have to."

"Please," he sighed, "I want you."

"Okay," Yami soothed.

The hands round his elbows lulled back onto the arm rests and taking that as a cue to move up and off so they could slink to bed Yugi cupped the back of the Emperor's neck planting a trail of kisses brokenly up his neck as he raised his head.

Settled comfortably astride the man's lap Yugi came face to face with-

Yami smirked softly.

Yugi stomach tightened cold.

They'd never talk about it. They didn't talk about anything- laboratories, rapes, near death experiences, possible multiple personalities… but the indigo regarding Yugi had darkened considerably and the pilot's hairs pickled on end along the back of his neck.

_Uh-oh_

"Are you sure?" Yami purred just above a whisper fingers rising slowly to clasp Yugi's jaw. Rendered unable to tilt his head the pilot was forced to speak.

"Y-yes…" He mumbled hesitantly. _You're not my Yami. You're different_.

"Hmm," Sennen nodded thoughtfully, "alright."

_CRACK_.

His palm ruptured open against Yugi's cheek so fast the pilot didn't see it coming. He gasped, half squealed, sound splitting out of him and in the tangled aftermath Yami's arms hooked round his middle. They stood, Yugi was lifted, and shell shocked the boy didn't quite know what to do when he was thrown down onto the bed.

Yami drew himself up on the mattress, knees half kicking between Yugi's thighs to assert his own weight between them. Yugi made to rise but hands tangled tight round his and forced his wrists above his head. Yami curled like a vice, crushing his wrists in a noose, and arching his back, grunting and squirming Yugi realized he was panicking. This wasn't safe. This wasn't the same.

With one hand pushing Yugi's arms down into the bed Yami rose into his knees, spreading his weight into his own gait, effectively spreading the pilot's legs a little further. The Emperor's hand was round his neck a second later, applying pressure, as burning lips bore down his jaw. Yugi kicked, tried to gain traction, wrists already aching, neck taunt and whining turned his lips away as Yami's stolen set nipped his cheek.

"S-stop!" Yugi coughed. "I c-can't bre-_aagh!_"

Yami gave half a chuckle.

The pressure never slackened.

"S-t-op!" He forced fire into his weakened body despite how the poison had rendered him tender. Adrenaline fought but he realized, as he hacked, that he couldn't scream in this state. No one was coming. Not even the guards right outside the doors.

His vision swum. Yami nipped his earlobe. Yu-Yugi-_oh God_- he fought and- yes! A hand came free and wildly squirming under the Emperor's weight Yugi didn't hesitate to connect his fist sloppily with the man's jaw.

_THWACK_

* * *

1 _7-13 Omega_ has been mentioned several times. Most importantly Heba mentions it first at the very end of _Chapter 10_. 7-13 was obviously Yugi in the TU. Yugi was found in a cryogenic pod in ancient ruins under the sea. Heba is somehow connected to him. Likewise Atem _might_ somehow be connected to Heba. It's all folding in~

2 Well if you've ever wondered if those dreams of Yami seeming possessed were just dreams: they weren't.

**Next Time: **Yugi holds on for dear life, Yami offers up an unexpected classic, a song infests the palace in warning, and finally Yugi's Knights and Atem's meet up to face a shared enemy in a city called Kul Elna.


	23. Chapter 23

Hey guys! Sorry about my slow messages in the last week. I'm currently out of town till Monday so please bear with me. I will get to everyone! Likewise editing this week has been messy so I apologize in advance.

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE  
(Track- Beauty and the Beast "Prologue")

It was like lightning had dissipated. Yami slumped into the mattress by his side and scrambling out from under him Yugi rolled onto his elbow, one hand fumbling his neck, coughing and inhaling wildly for fresh oxygen.

"Ah! _Ah!_" He was frenzied taking in air, digging his forehead into the bed as he rested into his elbow.

"_Ow_…" Yami moaned, feeling sheepishly over his jaw where the impact had landed. "Yugi…?"

Panting the pilot turned to the Emperor's spluttering, confused, expression. His eyes had lightened back to their typical shade. He seemed more himself. Yugi slumped onto his side, exhausted and rattled, shaking.

"D-don't do that!" He hissed, raising his head from between his forearms, throat burning.

"Do what…?" Yami blinked perplexed.

Yugi couldn't take it. He pushed himself up. He was sluggish with weakness but couldn't stand to stay here weak and defenceless. He stumbled off the bed and scrambling up onto his hands Yami seemed to panic.

"Yugi? Little one I-"

Yugi ignored him striding towards the Emperor's wardrobe and his end of the passage between their rooms.

"Yugi!" Yami had risen to follow, half knocking into the coffee table, thwacking against it in his shambles and Yugi was wrenching on the door of the passage before he reached him. "Yugi please! I'm sorry!"

Yami grasped his arms, tried to turn him round and hissing Yugi shoved till the Emperor was forced to tangle him up arms across the boy's torso hauling his back to his chest. Yami was frantic with apologies he practically sung to the panting pilot but Yugi doubted he even remembered what he was apologizing for. After a moment, heart rate lulling, Yugi sagged in his arms too weak to keep struggling and catching him Yami kept them both on their feet.

"I'm sorry little one, I'm _so_ sorry," Yami pleaded.

Normally Yugi wouldn't have minded. Months ago he would've expected Yami to be rough with him but not like that. That was unnatural. Yami had morphed into that person Yugi didn't recognize and it scared him. Were there two of him? Had there always been? Atem was transparent, Atem wouldn't do this and just thinking that made Yugi feel atrocious but the republican would be safe. Yami was starting to scare him.

"I'm so sorry," Yami shuddered, "are you alright?"

He was afraid, Yugi could hear it, and slack the pilot consented to let the Emperor readjust them so he could fuss over the pilot for injuries. Finding none he hardly seemed to ease at all, scatterbrained, and sighing Yugi hesitantly draped his arms round the Emperor's neck. He just wanted to lie with him again properly. Just be normal for a second. So even in some botched attempted murder Yugi would lean back into him.

Yami squeezed him tight, carded nervous fingers through his hair and Yugi wondered if the Emperor _had_ sent those chocolates. Was he trying to kill Yugi? Or just part of him? Or something inside him? Yami felt too worried, too strenuous, round him now for Yugi to believe this man would try and harm him but a moment ago on that bed…

"Yugi, are you alright?" Yami pestered cupping his cheek to push his eyes up but even then Yugi found it hard to look at him.

"Yeah," he croaked, hands idling on the man's shoulders before he ordered numbly: "bed."

"You don't-"

"I want you." Yugi intoned firmly. He was frightened but he had this dreadful sense that he needed to steal whatever moments of coherency he could with Yami right now.

"I'm sorry," Yami whispered for the twelfth time, "I haven't been myself lately. It's just stress. I'll be back to normal in a little while I promise."

That was an excuse, a lie too probably but Yugi cared about him too much to do anything but nod and consent to his bullshit. The sun was setting and Yugi needed him for a little longer.

"I want to cuff you." Yugi whispered dully._ Least that way if you go nuts again you can't kill me_.

Yami paused, lips parted towards him but sulking in his own shame the Emperor forced a weak grin to nod generously. He could hardly argue could he? Especially if he'd blacked out or something and had woken to a traumatised super ass-kicker trying to flee from his arms. _What did you do Sennen? What did you get yourself into? What do I have to save you from?_ Yugi cringed a little.

* * *

(Track- Portal 2 "Cara mia official extended version")

Yugi palmed the Emperor's ribcage as they sighed. Astride the man Yugi settled himself down, a little wet between the thighs and for a second soaked up the stretching purse of the other man inside him. He sat back, pushing off Yami's clavicle after a breath, and steadying closed his eyes as he sunk the last half a millimetre down onto the Emperor's aching cock.

"_Fuck_…" Yami's wrists yanked on reflex in the cuffs. They had at least ten times in the teasing as Yugi alternated between tongue and fingers. It was a motion the Emperor made when he wanted to hold him but didn't realize he couldn't. Sennen was probably more physical than he gave himself credit for. He wanted to be able to touch, to relieve the tension somehow.

Yugi rested his chin on his clavicle, fingers idle, and just stalled. Not really for Yami right then, not exactly, he just wanted to hold that moment of silence and serenity and peace. Merged, Sennen's cock inside him, thighs parted, heart steady, all pants and pleas and soft and foggy and easily calescent…

Yugi parted his lips, rolled his hips just a fraction on instinct and accentuated the feel of Yami inside him. For his own purposes it was comforting especially when the elder groaned, torturous, and digging his heels into the mattress arched his hips up. It didn't achieve much but as the Emperor moved within him Yugi clenched and turned his mouth into his shoulder. _Gods yeah_…

What if this was the last time? What if next time it was Atem between his legs? That sounded so fucking crude to Yugi he nearly cringed, guilty, but it was a brave new world now his file was gone. If Yugi was just like everybody else now then there were futures that could be planned outside laboratories and monarchies if he wanted.

What if something happened to Sennen? Why did Yugi feel like something would? He didn't want that. Not for a second. However Atem might've made him feel, the cancerous republican, Yugi couldn't dare picture Yami wounded or injured. He couldn't allow the conception that Sennen might not be here. The man who'd always been there just gone, puff, was…no. No; Sennen wasn't allowed to change. Yami wasn't allowed to leave. He wasn't allowed to get hurt. Yugi loved him too much in this weird co-dependent, stunted, trapped way they loved each other.

_Stop thinking_.

He chided himself, he curled in, licked the tip of his tongue over Yami's pebbled nipple and hissing the Emperor rocked his hips up with the help of his free legs. He had such strong thighs he could bounce Yugi on them. The pilot purred hoarse and low, open mouthed, into the other fastening his teeth round the bud. Yami moaned. Yugi licked up, one hand tangling in Yami's hair, kissing and sucking up his neck to the curve of his ear. Yugi paused there. Yami rocked up into him unable to thrust any better even as Yugi elongated himself. Yugi rocked with him a little, just a fragment and tried to map his smell.

Expensive, practical, Yami funnily enough smelt exactly like a young politician should. He was a groomed man and yet it was all so trivial; basic. His smell was so basic. Yet the undertones of the scent were of gym socks and single-father-smell creating that whole ruffled man thing. It was like peeling back the first layer of cynical professionalism Yugi found Yami as he actually was: a rich prat in his living room on a Sunday trying to watch bad sitcoms in peace. This was his Yami.

Yugi bit at his earlobe and dragged his tongue along the arch, round the back, feeling the thinness of the skin.

His fingers wandered over belly, nipple, rib and waist and laying into him as Yami tried to rock Yugi was essentially hugging him or trying to be hugged without the Emperor's arms. He was such a wuss at the core of it. Yugi was just a pussy somehow with this fussy old codger.

Give them another life and Yugi could've seen them as useless workaholics into their sixties in some expensive apartment having to smile at cameras all day. In another life Yugi wouldn't be afraid to have a real conversation with Yami and admit they both had feelings they were too fucking stuck up and manly to chat about. Yami had an image and Yugi was paranoid. Insecurities, itches, stupid fucking bullshit…

Yugi kissed him, felt his hair thick and mused, and the Emperor tasted tired and simple to the pilot. He tasted like he was just a man and way too human. Yami licked between their lips as Yugi pulled away and pulling himself up Yugi rocked on his hips with greater complexities of effort.

He rose a little higher, let Yami thrust a little more properly, till the Emperor's cock was actually slipping and pushing in and out to meet him an inch or more. Yugi rested into one arm, on his knees, to give them room to move and reaching up to Yami's locked wrists threaded their fingers. Yami squeezed his palm tight, holding his hand, and Yugi almost un-cuffed him.

"Aah…"

Just the grind was amazing, it scratched an itch, brushed up against gooey good places and slick Yugi moaned. They needed to run away to a tower and just do this all day. No more stress that drove Sennen to the apparent brink of insanity just a tower please.

Yeah, cause historically speaking _that_ was the way to solve relationship problems.

_Just get married_, Yugi prayed rocking with him, _just have some pretty queen and a fuck load of kids and end the war. _

_We'll play courtiers all day. We'll deal with snide nobles trying to marry me off for alliances. Your bitch wife will hate me cause she'll figure out we're fucking and you'll start smoking like a chimney again. I'll be snappy again like the good old days, while you can be voyeuristic and we can get kinky when you should be raising your disgruntled sons. Provided God doesn't just be an ass and give you like six daughters in punishment. _

_Hell we'll even take Horakhty as ambassador for the Bohemians and you two can make suspicious eyes at each other all day. Atem will forget all about me eventually. He'll give up on me ever leaving you. Then he can fall madly in love and be perfect as usual with some girl. I'll never kiss him again cause it'll break my heart too much. Then I can resent him again. Then you can try to scheme at way to get rid of him and I'll never leave you. I promise. _

_Just stay like this. Just be a possessive, stupid, bastard and never change. _

It was suddenly so hard to breathe.

Everything was cut off and Yugi realized there was no way to make the last anything perfect. The last time they made love, the last time they had dinner, the last time they did anything together would never be perfect. So he threw his hands up and slumping back on Yami's hips, panting, hot, found he couldn't…

"I don't think I can," he mumbled, mildly dejected.

There was this rush of admitting '_I can't cum'_ which was just deflating, kill-joy, and immediately ashamed Yugi found it hard to make eye contact as he ran his hand through his hair. His chest hurt too much to keep going though.

"I'm sorry," he groaned, hands over his scalp falling into his lap. "I'm thinking too hard."

"It's okay," Yami sighed, panting and heaving in their sweaty mess. He at least seemed disposed or resolved to the whole thing. "Take these off?"

Yugi did, gently, and peeling up from the sheets Yami pulled him back into the newly constructed nexus of his lap. The Emperor was looking at him too thoughtfully for Yugi to endure eye contact and running his hand down the pilot's forearm Yami seemed to decide upon something.

* * *

(Track- Heather Dale "Tristan and Isolt")

Whatever it was Sennen had decided it involved, or at least ended in, them naked on the couch watching this ridiculous _'classic_' of Sennen's on the TV. It was some movie which Yugi must've been twelve years too young to _'appreciate'_. Note the air quotations and the eye roll.

"The film quality is shit."

"Shh," Yami snorted.

A pause. On screen more florally half out of colour actors pranced talking in old English verse about nobility and chivalry. The chaste maiden turned to heroic Camelot king and-

"Oh my god," Yugi groaned slumping all the way into his side from upright to horizontal in the couch, "they're _singing_."

"They're two of the greatest actors of a decade."

"They're singing." Yugi pressed his hands over his face in a moan.

And they were. In that old fashioned, really polite, kind of way as if they didn't dare say anything above PG. Yet the movie was obviously pitched for adults, really prim adults. It had a coy sensibility, a sense of humour, somewhere between Shakespearian and musical. All the movie needed was to be black and white and Yugi could call Yami a godforsaken old man.

"How old were you when you watched this?" The pilot demanded, twisting naked onto his side like some common strumpet, tossing his legs over Yami's bare lap. King and Queen Camelot seemed to be exchanging jewels or flower crowns or something on screen.

"Five-ish," Yami chuckled.

"_Fuck_. Was it old when you watched it?"

"A little," he admitted and Yugi had this feeling the film was soaked with tradition or something, probably old enough to be in the national archives.

"I'm way too sexy, young and badass for this or _something_." Yugi snorted tritely, pushing up to plant his cheek in his elbow.

"You're certainly a little young to appreciate fine cinema apparently." Yami smirked chiding.

"You have me strewn naked across your lap and you're going to insult my choice in- They're fucking singing _again!_"

Yami laughed, patting at his thigh idly as if he were a fat cat strewn aghast over the couch. Yugi buried his face into his arms, lingering on the plush, and eventually inclined his nose over his forearm to regard the atrocity distastefully.

"I can't believe you like this." He murmured. "You have to be seventy."

"_Shh,_" Yami chuckled, hand drifting over Yugi's hip smoothly as he fought to keep a straight face.

* * *

(Track- Tchaikovsky "Serenade Melancolique")

Yugi would never admit it, not on threat of torture, but by the credits he was entranced. Chin on his forearms he watched the last lines with his lips apart. The movie was the weirdest kind of engrossing. The Queen was put to death for fucking Lancelot though so that was a bummer.

Yami took them back to bed in the aftermath, carried Yugi while the pilot flicked kisses up his neck, and then, only then, did they make it up properly. Had the king been trying to relax them? What happened, when it happened, was slow. It was quiet, wordless and gentle and imperfect but enough. Most of all, most importantly, it was private and it was them. They were together.

Yami peeled back the cottons of the sick wear, kissed his jugular, and let Yugi palm the back of his shoulder blades.

Yugi let Yami crane over him, between his thighs, without handcuffs and without fear and for an hour or less before they crashed into sleep Yugi trusted him completely again. Yami was just Yami, just good ol' Sennen. He smelt right, he snorted disapprovingly and he chuckled before the moans cut him off.

Yami kissed him as the pilot's fingers fisted weakly in his locks and sighing into each other Yugi's slick thighs twitched round bony, broad, hips. Slow, very slow, Yami sank to the hilt and toes curling in Yugi, embarrassed, broke his resolve earlier than he expected to cum in a pathetically breathy hiccup. His body flexed, without his permission, and moaning Yami filled him with another rolling, rushing, bumping thrust to pry a few more spasms free while the Emperor sighed into his shoulder.

Yugi's arms wouldn't unlock from round him but Yami hardly seemed to mind as he slumped into pilot all warm, all too much weight. Making little pants, with no lights, and snug half under the tangled blankets Sennen squeezed Yugi weakly but well intended as if they were nesting cats or something.

Yugi found himself carding fingers through the Emperor's hair, down his back just to trace, map, and solidify the feeling of Yami when he was himself and gentle. Yugi flexed his thighs. Normalcy domestic, simple, and pathetic sort of wafted down round them.

Yugi could pretend they were in his old town house or Sennen's old manor and as the Emperor slumped to his side and they pulled up the blankets shuffling closer everything was as it should've been.

The lights went off, Yami's arm came round his shoulder.

…

If… Yugi swallowed.

"Love you," Yugi hardly breathed, but if he didn't say it first Sennen would never try the insecure idiot.

"Hmm," Yami groaned sleepily round him, stretching out the cramps. He whispered then, very carefully, but very sincerely: "I love you too Yugi."

He could sleep again.

* * *

(Track- Immortal Technique "Dance with the Devil Instrumental")

Yugi pressed his face into Yami's bare chest under the bunched nest of blankets. Sennen, his Sennen, he sighed a little. It was okay. Everything would be okay. It was a brave new world and he just needed to stick with his scared little mantra.

It was freezing outside, still snowing, and running his hand down Yami's chest he nestled in a little closer to the sleeping body. He wouldn't dare get this cuddly when the Emperor was conscious. Yugi did still have a sense of pride even if, in private, it was fading fast.

Yugi wanted to trace Yami's sleeping cheek bones again but settled for resting his head on his clavicle, his bare leg slung over Sennen's hips under the quilt. It had to be after midnight, dark space, far from dawn but after days in these stupid rooms Yugi wasn't going to crash out easy even with the bigger body, the safe body, against him.

Sennen, Yami; he repeated the words.

He was still so scared. Always scared. At least this weird, neurotic, man made him foolishly happy with a pair of firm arms and an impatient tongue.

There was the secret though. They'd passed over the whole Underground fiasco but Yugi wasn't about to forget. It was a new secret in their already growing pile. They were just not going to talk about it? Pretend maybe? Did Yami honestly believe him? Believe that Yugi was human? Was he even human? Yugi's stomach contorted. He suppressed. He fused his eyes closed. He didn't want to know. He didn't ever want to know what a '_Paraxia-Pura_' was or if he'd had a mother or if he'd been grown in a tube…

He sighed through his nose, nestled, supressed.

It was like, in the air, the twang of a piano key went off.

What…?

Yugi felt his palm on Yami's chest as clearly as he felt the eyes drilling into his back. He didn't…he didn't hear anything, not at first, but he _felt_ it.

Someone was watching them.

Yugi sometimes felt, superstitiously, like there was someone lingering out of sight near the fire place but this was… this was different. This was intense.

How did someone break into the Emperor's rooms?

Yugi kept his eyes closed, was he just… Was it just paranoia…?

If he strained his ears Yugi was sure he could hear _breathing_.

It was just him. It was just Yami's heart under his hand. That was it.

It felt so dark…

Yugi's lids parted cautiously, face into the Emperor and orientated towards the windows, while something gazed into his back.

"_When the wind blows-_"

Yugi was so- it was so quiet it might as well have just been Yugi's imagination, it could've been, it-

"_-the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks the cradle will fall…_"

He was dreaming… wasn't he?

Yugi tried not to move.

"_And down will come baby…_"

Weight, real as _fucking_ sin _weight_ settled on the edge of the mattress. A knee sat on the bed behind the small of his back. Yugi felt his fingers curl under the blanket all tension coiling into his muscles. Oh holy fucking-

Yugi moved all on instinct, up and around.

Lurched up in bed to face it-

…

No-nothing…

Yugi panted, lips apart, there was nothing there…

The whole room was visible in the darkness his eyes had adjusted to and there was no one but…But Yugi had felt it right on the edge of the bed and…

"Hmm," Yami murmured, "what?"

"There was something…" Yugi fluttered dumbly. "There was something in the room…I-I…"

"There's nothing," he yawned, half conscious. "Lie _m_'ack down. You had a nightmare."

Yeah, right…

* * *

(Track- Shostakovich "Waltz No. 2")

Motou had been dispatched to the border a week or more ago for a campaign along the line which meant that while Mahado was reaping international successes for the military at home, in the Capital, he found things a little stuffy. The Emperor had a tendency to get his hands in the management of everything especially while Motou was abroad. More especially concerning the army in particular given Sennen's background which Mahado…well, he was accustomed to it after years of working under Sennen but some days…

"Majesty?" He let himself in.

"Yes?" Emperor Sennen hardly looked up. He was strangely steely.

"Majesty I was hoping to get your clarification on the allocation of a few military assets?"

"Make it quick."

Not even a glimmer of eye contact. Where was the snide air of humour? The general impropriety and secret friendliness Mahado had come to associate with Yami Sennen?

"Majesty the outer laboratories have recruited the entire weapons development division from HQ for work on their projects without my consent-"

"I know," Sennen dismissed him, "I ordered it."

"Sir?" He floundered. The Emperor had gone ahead without consulting him? "May I ask why?"

Sennen paused, glanced finally, and Mahado found himself uneasy.

"Do I have to explain myself?" He challenged. "I ordered weapons development to the outer laboratories. That should be good enough and if it's not allow me to remind you who has the military experience here. Anything else Minister?"

"No-No Majesty." Mahado collected himself.

He'd never seen Sennen so…_vile_.

The ex-Minister was always a little cynical, bitter, occasionally pessimistic but what had struck Mahado first about meeting him all those years ago was his nature. For all his spite and his propriety Yami Sennen had always been something of a soft touch at the heart of it. He was a sour man but a good man and a reasonable man in spades. He had his days, they all did in this office, but Mahado had never…

He found himself like a scolded school boy in the hallway moments later unsure if he wold be able to raise his voice imposingly to his subordinates for the rest of the day.

What on earth was going on?

Was it because Motou was away? Sennen seemed to get on with him these days, seemed stressed. Mahado couldn't fathom further why… why divert so many assets, so suddenly, to the outer laboratories which already were supposed to have many resources? The hell was going on out there?

* * *

(Track- Rozen Maiden "Bara no Chikai")

Yugi switched the lights down to night vision. The MAG1C had one hell of a set of HD screens in the cockpit. The night vision was almost dangerously clear. Sometimes in older units switching to these systems meant he found himself flying nearly blind on radar and sonar and whatever else he had to map with.

"Can we camp?" Jou whined lazily over their private frequency.

"Kul Elna's just over the ridge," Yugi snorted, "we're getting a hotel room."

"Really?" Jou's tune changed. "Sweet!"

Kul Elna was their latest rally and refill point before the next border skirmish. Yugi rather liked the place. It was an international, independent, city state. In effect it was a nation, a walled city, free of Imperial or Republican rule.

It was swarming with traders, refugees, bandits, outlaws…generally a whole lot of people who didn't like extradition as a rule. The most useful things Yugi had ever learnt he had learnt in Kul Elna during his stop offs where he tended to linger. The people were wily, cunning and ballsy. They were all about blunt brass tax and they'd swindle you blind. Nomads from the Republic taught Yugi how to sew his own stitches when he was sixteen and gypsies from the Empire showed him a few nasty herbal tricks but the life lessons he could glean from bandits were irreplaceable.

He knew the city fairly well these days but after three weeks he wanted to be back in Cyprus before Yami shot himself in the foot with Yugi gone. Sure the press was fab on keeping Yugi up to date on the Capital goss but if there was anything the empire could do it was propaganda. Even if everyone in the palace was starving it wouldn't make it to the radio waves.

The Knights made a beeline past the fortified wall of Kul Elna, flashing passports out the cockpits of their mechs, heading for the Ranca. Not the biggest motel but definitely the one Yugi trusted not to try and steal their equipment and, unlike most of the desert joints, they didn't charge you by the litres used. Yugi liked his showers.

The boys were efficient. Mechs tarped in the stables out back they started grabbing their overnight bags. Yugi dropped his backpack beside him, dog tags warm under his response suit, and pulling out one of his breasted military jackets pulled it up over his shoulders. It made him look less like Yugi Motou when he wasn't just out there in the purple response suit flaunting it. They paid attention to televised mech fights in Kul Elna like no one's business. He would be recognized here. Not that it mattered but it was frustrating.

A soft metallic pop.

Yugi darted to behind the steel of his mech on instinct. The wood to Yugi's right, about two feet ahead, splintered. Guns, silencers, _fuck!  
_

"_Boys!" _Yugi screamed to the others tarping up in the stalls as he wrenched his handgun out of his belt. "We've got hostiles!"

Unidentified enemy soldiers; peachy.

* * *

(Track- Prince of Egypt "Chariot Race")

They had more than six hostiles. All with night silencers and black special ops response suits. Holy mother fucking shit. Someone apparently didn't give a fuck about international law. Yugi crushed himself in between the rest of the Knights. In the firing of bullets between them in the stables Otogi, Honda and Jou had made their way to his side nearest the entrance. They only had handguns, a few clips and Yugi knew they were going to run out of shots first before the enemy men.

"Jou how they locking on us?"

The blonde stuck his head out, almost got it shot off, and then spun back. He was totally fearless or entirely daft. See this was why Yugi asked Jou to do shit. The blonde would jump into the mouth of hell if Yugi told him to.

"Night vision," he hissed lowly, "looks like."

"Heh," he grinned, "Honda, Jou, fire your asses off. Otogi get the flares. We blind the fuckers and we run. We'll plan it out from there. Got me?"

"_Yes Sir!_" His trio chorused with vicious little grins under their breaths. Fucking right. Yugi Motou, scourge of the Imperial army, was not going to be afraid of a few tossers with fancy tech.

There were audible, satisfying, screams when Otogi and Yugi tossed out the lit flares and surprised their hostile friends currently trying to shoot the Knights' asses off. With the night vision goggles the flares blinded the guys with guns violently and darting full pedal the Knights bounded, shoving past them out of the stable and off down the streets.

It didn't take two corners however till Yugi saw stone fly off the wall beside him as, while running, their assailants shot after them. The six guys with guns were in hot pursuit and as Yugi wound them round dark, tight, corners making the Knights as hard to hit as possible he found that these guys did _not_ want to give up.

"Who the fuck are they?" Honda panted barrelling beside him as their feet broke hard on the sandy ground uneven underfoot.

"Not Republican!" Otogi confirmed. "Their equipment's too good!"

"Ask later!" Yugi snapped.

"Why would someone want us dead?" Jou rasped panting.

"_Who doesn't want us dead dumb fuck!?_" Yugi shot back as he led them round the next corner.

That had to be the stupidest question he'd heard all day… seriously who didn't want to shot at him? Atem Horakhty professed to love him and he still wanted to punch Yugi regularly.

Luckily Kul Elna had been built generation upon generation, slum upon slum, and it was a beehive of buildings clustered into one Arabian mazed nesting _clusterfuck_. With a few sharp turns and another few frantic moments Yugi put some space between them but the six armed men in black weren't going to let up yet.

They twisted down the maze, between houses where families of forty slept in two rooms, and laundry and garbage made it hard to see ahead of their noses. Yugi rounded the corner and their vision cleared under the moonlight as they reached a crossroads.

It was then he spotted the panting, uniformed, men running towards them.

"Fate you crazy bitch!" Yugi laughed as he skidded to a halt gun in hand.

Atem skidded to a stop clumsily in front of him as he and his Republican tagalongs; Bakura and the Ishtar brothers, came hurtling down from the opposing end of the street. At this point, after everything, it was as if Yugi and the Knights had spotted a rather well known relative of theirs. Enemies they might've been on the field but, frankly, the two teams knew what to do and fighting each other came last on that list right now.

"Are crazy guys in black trying to kill you?" Atem panted brazenly, hello's unnecessary.

"Yeah," Yugi grunted heaving, "you too?"

"Yeah," Atem concurred.

Fucking typical.

Panting, drenched with sweat, the eight of them made a kind of simultaneous eye contact. Yugi nodded. Atem shrugged, chin bobbing, and all of them breathless Yugi gave the order as the not too distant sound of pounding feet started to run up between the walls closing in on them.

"Everyone scatter!" Yugi cried.

Didn't need to tell them twice.

Jou and the Ishtar boys bounded over a dumpster. Bakura dragged himself like a rabbit round in the opposite direction as Honda and Otogi pushed off their knees like sprinters to follow, after a moment to catch their breath, and all instinct Yugi and Atem barrelled off down the nearest street like wild hares.

Yugi ran, gun in hand, clapping himself on the hip every now and again with steel as his finger rested on the trigger. Atem took a striding, miraculous, pace right beside him to the teeth and didn't lose an inch as they charged down the back streets in unison side by side. People could say what they wanted to say about the war, about Yugi's Knights and Atem's Knights, but they knew when to throw down the sword to fuck up someone else's shit as a team.

Yugi could hear heavy military issue boots close in behind them. A shot whizzed the air between he and Atem, ripping a bed sheet hanging from a window, and arm out Atem pulled down dumpsters behind them as they passed to make it as uncomfortable and troublesome for their pursuers as possible.

"What's the plan?" Atem hardly sounded winded. Good, that meant he could keep up with Yugi for a while.

"Follow me!" Yugi ordered. "I think I know where we are!"

He really fucking hoped the layout of the city hadn't changed much since last time he was here.

They charged round another trio of corners until swerving them Yugi kicked through an open back door and dragged them into light. They blitzed into one of the most crowded bars in the city, clattering over the counter top, Atem apologizing and leaping off the other side broke though the main swinging saloon doors into another street.

Their confused assailants came charging through the bar and obviously unprepared for what they found clearly didn't know the city. Yugi cackled and as they ran down the street he fired overhead.

"What're you _doing?_" Atem hollered.

"Getting attention!" Yugi answered.

This wasn't a good part of town. People started waking up at the gunshots, throwing on their lights, sticking out their windows and pulling out their own guns all while the three men in black with rifles following Atem and Yugi finally made it onto the street to find themselves amongst a mob exposed in their fancy tech.

Atem laughed over his shoulder. Yugi pulled them, yanking on Atem's wrist, to make their escape disappearing down another corner. Atem's fingers held tight round his and they pelted hand in hand into the night.

* * *

1 I friggin love the interactions of the Bohemian and Cyprus Knights. Did anyone other than Monk notice that in chap 18 or so when Atem and Yugi fell down that cliff they all stopped fighting like schools boys to see if they were alright?

AN; sorry I don't have any clever notes or songs this week guys. Blame my being out of town! Anyway, love you all massively, and hope you enjoy.

**Next Time**: Yugi and Atem get a room in Kul Elna, Yami lays in bed with Heba enduring the consequences of his decisions, and as Yugi tries to warn the Emperor about the mysterious men in black Mahado gives him reason for concern. Something wicked this way comes.

**Chapters Till Yugi and Heba Meet**: 2 (chapter 26~)


	24. Chapter 24

Okay so… I had a crazy week! Good news? I proposed to my girlfriend. Bad news? A couple I love dearly are in a bit of strife after grandpa attempted to murder grandma and left her paralyzed so… yeah I'm on damage control at the moment. Excuse any typos please?

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR  
(Track- "Hanging Tree" Blackmore's Night)

Laughing Atem leant into his knees breathlessly as they made it to the main street in the centre of Kul Elna. Head back, panting and sweating Yugi felt his shoulders bounce rocking his backpack as he tried to grasp proper air through cackles. Wheezing Atem pushed himself up and beckoned Yugi followed him briskly up the steps of the biggest hotel in town. Place was five star, extravagant and stupid with a massive Casino, but it was possibly their safest option right now.

Panting Atem threw himself into the service desk and following behind him Yugi threw a bank card onto the wood by the receptionist's laptop.

"Room, now." He ordered. "Put it on savings."

They still hadn't quite recovered when Atem collapsed onto the queen sized bed, on his stomach, and Yugi double locked the door after them. Yugi let his backpack hit the spotless carpet sloppily with a _clunk_ and hauling himself up the edge of the mattress threw himself onto his side limply against the Bohemian.

"You okay?" Atem sighed, exhaling heavily, still coated with sweat.

"Y-yeah," Yugi wheezed, half on his side half on his stomach messily. "Fucking terrible aim the lot of them."

"Heh," the Bohemian hero laughed into the bedding, "guess this means we have to hold up for the night?"

"Find the other's in the morning," Yugi agreed.

In the daylight the masked gunmen were unlikely to try and ambush them. It would be foolhardy. In the morning they could all collect their mechs and get out of here but for tonight they would need to hide.

He drew his phone up to his face and thumbing the keypad texted the boys. He didn't want to risk setting off their dial tones if they were hiding behind crates. He used code and he gave no locations given there was no reason all of them should try and meet up tonight. Beside him Atem pushed up and off the bed. Finding his own phone the Republican must've been texting his own boys the same message as he waded through the rooms checking the windows were locked and drawing the blinds.

Yugi twisted onto his back, throwing his phone onto the bedside table and didn't for a second consider how incredibly simple this was, how natural, how synchronised, till Atem fell back onto the mattress in his response suit.

Hands by his side the pilot glanced as slumping Atem lay his cheek into the mattress to meet Yugi's gaze.

"News said you were in the hospital and that they're charging the old crown prince with treason?" Atem began easily.

"Someone tried to poison me," Yugi shrugged glancing back to the ceiling, "I don't think it was Kaiba especially not after those guys tonight. There was no way Kaiba could organize that. Why would he even want to kill _you?_"

"Those guys were professionals," Atem pondered. "They were serious business."

"Those were Imperial special ops suits."

"I thought so," Atem nodded, "looked like the one you wore when you tried to assassinate me."

"Heh," Yugi laughed. It was an honest laugh, an actual laugh, him being him without pretention and squirming onto his side he gravitated to Atem.

The Bohemian smiled, the same as ever, and just opened his arms slackly so Yugi could arrange himself leg over hip, cheek on chest, arm on clavicle soaking up the sweat through his jacket.

"I'm glad you're okay," Horakhty sighed puffing at his fringe as a slack downy arm found its way round Yugi's shoulders, "it's really scary when I see stuff on the news and I know you're three time zones and an international border away."

"I can handle myself."

"I know," Atem grinned generously. "I figured."

Yugi…

Atem trusted him to take care of himself, to survive and thrive. Horakhty knew or at least he knew well enough not to push. Beyond that, from surface to core, Atem seemed to grasp Yugi's capabilities. He trusted him in a way that was… Yugi knew, he'd always know, that Atem wanted to save him, to protect him, but Atem wanted to protect Yugi from himself. Not from the world. Atem knew Yugi could take the world, he knew Yugi didn't need a tower, it wasn't about that. The Bohemian never boxed, never cuffed, never became claustrophobic and…

Yugi squeezed a little closer and flexing Atem returned the show of strength on cue but at every squirm Yugi's motion went un-resisted. Horakhty really was his own element. He was made of something else, he understood something, and he just clicked how to be himself in a way that was peaceful and kind. It just… Yugi eased the coils of muscle running hard up his spine. He didn't need to press any closer. Atem wasn't going anywhere. Just having him there was the safest Yugi had felt in weeks, free, relaxed,_ himself_…

"Heh," Horakhty butted the pilot's forehead with his nose like a cat. "I miss this smell every day."

Yugi didn't realize he was smiling.

"I love you." Atem whispered gently against his fringe.

"I love you too," it flowed out, Yugi couldn't catch it but he didn't quite want to.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know," Atem sighed, "just…in general? I don't know."

"I…" Yugi held himself back, paused, and didn't want to say it out loud. "I love Yami."

"I know," the Bohemian cringed, pushing up so they could sit back against the headboard like a bunch of school kids in a dorm. "I'm sorry."

"No I just…" Yugi sighed, hooking his arms round his knees as he leant into the uncouth farm boy he was so secretly mad for. "I'm…I'm scared. I think…I think Yami's trying to kill me."

"_What?_" Atem couldn't seem to fathom it. Neither could the Imperial. Saying it out loud felt ridiculous. "Why would Sennen…?"

"I don't know," he shook his head. He couldn't speak like this with the others or even with Yami. "I just…when I was poisoned someone sent me food pretending to be Yami but it was definitely his hand writing. Then those guys tonight with Imperial tech and…he…"

Atem waited, didn't push but folding Yugi felt this overwhelming rush, urge, to splay everything out loud before the Bohemian.

"He tried to strangle me." Yugi admitted finally. "He didn't seem to remember though…it's like…I don't know…Like there's two of him?"

"You think he's cracking?" Atem cringed at his own words then, throwing his arm gently round Yugi's shoulders; "I'm sorry that's a bad choice. Just, do you think maybe all the stress is hitting him? Or he's sick? Or he needs help or something? You know him better than anyone."

"I don't even know," he sighed slumping his forehead into the groove of his knees. "Sometimes it's like it's not even him anymore and I keep having these stupid nightmares and…" He inhaled groggy and tense.

Atem's palm rubbed up and down his shoulder supportively but the Bohemian never tried to shush him or dismiss him. Still Yugi didn't have the strings. He couldn't make Atem do anything. They were just equal somehow. Forever evenly matched and, ironically, till death do them apart eh?

"I'm exhausted." Yugi mumbled. "I wish it was all over. All the stress, the fear, the bullshit… I'm not good at being a courtier. I just hate it. I don't even know how I'm supposed to fight against you or sacrifice the others and…I feel so fucking_ human_."

"Yugi, you've been human since I met you," Atem nudged butting his nose against his temple. "You're not weapon you're a person."

"I've never felt like it." He whispered.

For more than a decade Yugi had felt a world apart, above, being human like there was some thick, impenetrable, wall he'd constructed between himself and the rest of the species. Yugi had made himself a war god, a spirit of vengeance and chaos and that had saved him from being human.

"Have you thought about asking Yami to end the war?" Atem suggested. It was what he wanted, what he was fighting for, yet somehow Horakhty didn't seem to begrudge Yugi for not trying to escape the bear trap of his own situation.

"No," Yugi sighed, "I don't think I could. I don't know if he'd listen. He'd think I'd lost it and…"

Yugi sighed deeply into his knees and Atem waited.

"Sides, what am I going to be if we end this?"

"A hero," Atem whispered seriously, "better than that you can be whatever you want to be. You can have a future and a family and anything you want. You don't have to fight to be important. You don't have to be anything that makes you unhappy."

"I'll be useless." He breathed quietly, raising his chin to glance the hotel room. "What good am I to Sennen if I'm not Yugi Motou the Murderer? What good am I to anyone?"

"Yugi," Atem curled forward into his own knees to come as close to nose to nose as he could with his arm tightening round the Imperial's shoulder. "If Yami Sennen doesn't love you when you're content, happy, and safe, when you're the you I can see sometimes, when you smile, then I feel sorry for him."

"I…" Would Sennen love him then? Would they be able to be as they were if Yugi changed? "I've never…this is all I know how to be."

"Just cause of…" the Bohemian sighed, found strength to smile, and nudged their noses as Yugi's eyes became wet and glassy. "Who you were doesn't damn who you get to be."

"Horakhty- _Atem_," Yugi swallowed, "can I tell you something?"

"Like what, a secret?" Atem teased softly and frankly he was justified. What national laws hadn't they broken together yet sharing information like this? Yugi even had to smile weakly.

They shared a glance, half a laugh, and slumping in towards him a little however odd the angle Yugi tried to collect himself. He wanted to say this to someone, just once, just be honest once.

"I don't have a family." He murmured. "They…Gozaburo…I woke up in a laboratory called The Underground when I was eight and I…I don't think I'm human."

Atem blinked, but didn't cringe back and didn't even seem to consider shouting. He just watched forever entranced.

"They…" Yugi bit his lip. "I was so traumatised when I woke up and then they…they were horrible. I hated that place _so much_. I still hate it. It was just drills and mazes and tests and injections… I just shut down after a while and when I wouldn't play along eventually they let me out and put me with the princes and Sennen but…for a while…they…they used to electro shock my brain, starve me, hit me…t-tried _everything_ and-"

Yugi choked, found himself pulling back to rub hard at his lips, his eyes, his nose as he shook. It had never sounded so inhumane inside his head. He was trembling. He wanted to stop. He hated how his fingers vibrated.

Atem's arms, thick and tan, worked loose round his middle and very gently hefted Yugi into his lap as he crossed his legs. It was graceless and with every motion Yugi had a chance to pull away but the fact Atem wanted to hold him was enough for the Imperial to twist and loop his arms viciously round the bigger man's neck.

"Yugi-"

He was wrenching, quaking at the wave of the memories and he couldn't find the restraint to stop the tight little sobs. Why did Atem always seem to be here when he cried?

"Yugi," the farm boy hugged with certainty, "there's nothing wrong with you. Okay? They were freaks and you didn't deserve that and I don't love you any less for it, alright?"

His fingers curled in the Atem's shoulders, broad and strong, and with his face jammed under the Bohemian's jaw Yugi could almost smell soil. Yami had demanded but that wasn't the Emperor's fault though. Yugi had never tried to tell him and hadn't known for a long time if he knew anyway and it was just one of those mutual things they didn't talk about. Yugi swallowed phlegm and took a breath trying to map Atem's shoulder blades. Why did he want to tell Horakhty? How did he know Horakhty wouldn't think he was a _thing?_

"That doesn't make you not a person," Atem tried again, dreadful with graceful words but so sincere in how he was aching it almost bruised to hear the Bohemian try and comfort him. "It doesn't change anything. Not to me. I promise."

Why weren't there more people like Atem Horakhty?

* * *

(Track- "Room of Angels" by Porcelain and the Tramps)

Yami couldn't have moved. His arms shook too badly on the attempt to raise himself. Just rolling seemed impossible so mostly on his stomach he let the continuous trickle of clogged, snotty, bloody puddle on the pillow and the sheets. His ears were ringing, the migraine was inhumane, and the sticky sting in his ears told him without raising his hand that he was probably bleeding there too.

He supposed this was what it was like to give birth.

"You're doing well," Heba crooned. His voice was the only noise that didn't hurt perhaps because now it was more inside Yami's head than in his ears. Still there was a sting from his temples as Yami comprehended the words.

"I-it's hell." He managed brokenly. He'd never felt so pathetically ruined.

"Rebirth," Heba promised, brushing and patting at him as he knelt on the bed. "Your brain has to be completely rewired. It's just teething. You'll recover."

"Ho-aw much l-longer…?"

"Must be gentle," he whispered, breathy and almost hissing. "Can't break your central processor."

_"Hurts_…" His eyes stung again. He felt like he was five years old.

"You're doing so well," Heba shushed, "just think of the power when it's all done."

He missed Motou. He missed his mother and his father and a million little memories nipped clumsily inside his churning skull till he was queasy. He couldn't seem to control his thought patterns. It was a sea of chaos and infamy outside the one solid line he could hold which was the hook of Heba's consciousness digging like a rail road spike into his own. It was like a mental wound, bleeding synapses and pulses, as Yami's mind tried to heal round it. Heba's thoughts, Heba's presence, was the one solid, stable, thought Yami could hold onto to stop himself from tail spinning.

Mentally Yami felt as if he were unlacing, falling. When he tried to think he found a hellish, hectic, clusterfuck and when he tried not to he felt a whirlpool sucking him sickly in. Heba, locking onto Heba, was all he could conjure to hold steady as the bile crept up his throat.

Why had he agreed to this? Why did he want to unlock this box to paradise and infestation and hellish glorious power in unity? Why was he letting Heba, dangerously underage, have something so completely untested? Sure at the Lab Heba had… but this was a different connection or it was supposed to be and…hmmm… and… no…he… what had he been thinking again? Saying? What?

_Yugi_…

Sweet Christ Yugi…

Yami's eyes were sticky when he closed them. However unable to help himself a second later, when Heba prodded with a little pulse from that mental invasion of his, Yami's lids parted opening without his permission. Heba seemed worried Yami would sustain something of a manmade concussion and fade out if the witch didn't keep him conscious and steady.

He breathed through his mouth, tasted a drip of blood running over his lips, and the metallic scent of blood was consuming.

Yugi…

The kiss of his jaw line, the bend of his knee, his laugh, that smile, Yugi's blood, the pilot tiny and pale and dying in a rolling sea of blankets hooked up to heart monitors and bags after that poisoning attempt…

Heba, who looked and sounded so very much like Yugi, patted at him stroking idly in a way that sent electric pulses scattering round Yami's spine…

Yami held that image, those sounds, of Yugi; moaning, twinkling laugh, scrunched up nose, cheek bones flecked with shower water…

When Yami was twenty-two and had come to the palace for Christmas Yugi had been ten. Gozaburo never bought them presents, he had secretaries for that, but the occasion was enforced. Seto had been sixteen and had been reading engineering textbooks all night. Mokuba had planted himself in front of the TV cross legged on the floor to stay out of Gozaburo's way. Yami had come in his military uniform and had spent most of the night cradling a drink wanting to be out whoring. Yugi had a cold, a horrid one for a child who never seemed to get sick, and snotty he'd pulled the blanket over his head and made a ball in the window seat.

Gozaburo had left after a call from some of his buddies to go to something of a private 'meeting' which was code for whoring given how he winked at Yami. Yami had let Kaiba stay up because he felt no right nor any interest in bossing the Kaiba brothers, his cousins, round.

Yugi had kicked at Yami when he pulled the blanket back from the boy's head at midnight to check he was still alive and rubbing his knee Yami had left the nasty little boy there unattended. Red nosed, nasally, Yugi had tried to bury himself, too tired to move, wiping his mouth on the inside of the blanket.

When Yami was twenty-eight and Yugi sixteen the boy had been entered into active duty on Gozaburo's orders. Yami had felt a little cheated he hadn't been granted early deployment in his own military career. He was sceptical of Yugi who'd been privately tutored, all in secret, and who he doubted could cut it in the field. Yugi was loud, made a mess, and Yami had had to fix it till he established the Knights. Yugi had been so petite in his uniform that Yami felt silly giving the teenager orders but that was the year Yugi really started to bloom.

Watching Yugi sit next to Mokuba at the dinner table then had been strange. Yugi with his medals and his uniform and his bright wild eyes next to Mokuba who, only a speckling of years older, was still attending normal schooling at the royal academy in the city. Gozaburo had teased Mokuba for not being a prodigy. Yami had finished top of everything in the Officer's Academy to become one of the youngest Minister for two centuries, a strategist. Seto had raced through schooling to go into engineering well ahead of his grade and seemingly brilliant, gobbling, at everything Yugi had been all across the papers at sixteen as this newly discovered legend in the making.

Yami knew the Kaibas were still in the tower, he missed them, but he'd slaughter them for treason and for the attempt at Yugi…

He missed running his hands down Yugi's sides. He wanted the pilot home now but he could hardly fathom letting Yugi see him like this. He was the strong one, he was determined to be, but regardless he wanted to kiss the child's navel, feel his arms, smell perfume and grope gym shorts…

Yugi had said he loved him.

Yami breathed through the blood, found a little more strength, and knew he needed to start telling the pilot the same more often.

* * *

(Track- Buffy "Under Your Spell")

Yugi slept in his jacket while Atem, ever graceful, splayed in a pair of undone jeans and boxers. Atem moved in his sleep, rolled and shifted unconsciously like Yugi did. He was sure they must've looked like a mess of seething kittens under the quilts. It was neater in the Palace. Yami held him so snug that Yugi's fidgeting in the night bruised the Emperor. Yami was solid, still and reassuringly consistent like he was in his own coffin. As for Atem…

Yugi woke to find he was sweaty. The pair of them had kicked the quilts not only down but nearly off the bed. The coverlet had started slipping onto the floor. Strewn across the mattress with his hair matted round his face Yugi woke befuddled with bed warmth. He was splayed on his side, Atem's arm under his neck, the Bohemian's curling fingers before his eyes, the hero's side against the curve of his spine. Yugi brushed at his face dazedly and glancing over his shoulder found that Atem had thrown himself open like a starfish almost conquering the entire mattress. Yugi snorted, Atem snored quietly with his lips half open and finding existence was too much effort Yugi flopped back down boneless.

That smell was back like a rainforest: floral, pungent, earthy and primal wafting up from them. Yugi liked it. It made him want to curl back down and nest. It was calm with Atem, content, peaceful. He could stay like this for years but, darkly, he realized he'd once thought that about Sennen and actually he still did.

Yugi twisted his nose into Atem's arm. He didn't have proper words to explain how he felt. Could he convince the men to be polygamists somehow? Was that even possible? God it sounded fucking stupid considering he'd been raised a catholic. It wasn't that he loved Sennen any less than Atem or that he thought any better or preferred either of them. If he had it would've been _so_ much simpler. If he could just pick a side he would've. It was…just…

Fathomless Yugi yawned into Atem's skin. He wanted a world where he could have both of them and they were both normal and happy. He didn't comprehend how Atem and Yami might take to each other but he supposed Yami would feel righty betrayed if everything came out in the wash.

Argh, whatever, he was too tried for this. It may have been the best night's sleep he'd had in weeks but nonetheless he had no solution for the problem. Right now he was more worried about Yami's health than the future.

Still, if Yugi wasn't going to be a superhuman anymore…

That might be a nice dream to try and fight for: some kind of world where Atem and Yami could co-exist happily.

How did he do that…?

* * *

(Track- "Greensleeves" instrumental)

It was pleasant to steal the morning with Atem, hoping in and out of showers, picking up handfuls of room service as he darted round the room re-packing and dressing.

The Bohemian went casual but both of them had their belts with holsters armed. Yugi stuffed his response suit in his backpack but detached the thin Kevlar weave vest to wear under his tee just in case. They'd told the boys to meet by the fountain in the centre of town, in plain sight, so they could all trade off their separate ways amicably but so long as neither Yugi nor Atem started anything there wouldn't realistically be a problem.

Atem grabbed something off the bed round him, pecked Yugi's cheek in passing, and promised, mumbled, that he loved Yugi again so nonchalantly it was bewitching. The ripples of muscles, tan skin, soft forested scent… Yugi had a refill of the Bohemian to commit to memory for another month or two before the intensity faded and he cried in a locker room again over his response suit.

Yugi pivoted on his heels and compelled slung his arms round the Republican's shoulders. Atem blinked, slumped a little under the weight that surprised and trapped him, but a moment later strong, limber, muscle was squeezing round Yugi in support.

"I'm gonna see you soon," Atem promised.

Yugi nodded into his shoulder.

"About the Lab-" Yugi mumbled.

"Doesn't change a thing," Horakhty's lips furrowed against his brow. "Not a thing. Okay? You're perfect."

"I love you."

Atem's lips twitched up into that explosive, radiant, smile of his and Yugi found himself steeled rather than weakened. Yugi dragged him down by his collar. It was heating up outside, nearly midmorning and they had to leave but Yugi bruised their lips together wetly and kissing down into him with the minor height advantage Atem had the Bohemian's hands squeezed his hips.

"I love you too," Atem swore, rather reverent between brushes as Yugi's hands smoothed over his clavicle and round up the back of his neck adoringly. "If you need me you call me. I'll help, especially with Sennen, sounds like he needs it."

"You mean that?"

"I'll break into the palace if I have to." He winked.

"I feel like a bad influence." Yugi snorted, grasping and smoothing his collar, fidgeting. He didn't want to peel apart.

"Call it even," Atem dismissed with implication, smiling in a way that though slack showed the tips of a few white teeth between his lips.

"He thinks you hurt me," the Imperial admitted, "I tried to explain but he still…"

Like so many things words had failed Yugi in that particular scenario. He'd tried to be clear but needless to say Yami was not going to be open to Horakhty's support. Humiliated Yugi would admit he was a pathetic courtier. He could barely hold a general conversation with Sennen, whatever their intimacy emotionally and physically, and everything else from the lab to Horakhty was pushed under the rug so neither of them had to deal with it. They needed to talk somehow.

"We're in a pretty bad corner aren't we?" Atem sighed.

"You're fucking telling me," Yugi puffed at his fringe miserably.

"Well we seem to think of our best ideas at the last minute," he shrugged softly. "Just don't give up okay? If anyone can get through to Sennen and get him to slow down it's you. Without you driving the war things have to wind off. We can do it."

At least Horakhty believed in him.

"I have to straighten everything out, don't I?" Yugi supposed to himself as he frowned at Atem's clavicle. "I've got to tell Sennen everything to try and talk some sense into him. If we're on the same page maybe… he's a smart guy surely he doesn't want to keep fighting like this. If I can just…"

Atem squeezed him gently and nodded.

"If it goes bad," Yugi raised his chin trying to joke, "I'm breaking out and running over the border."

"Heh," he chuckled, "you and me fighting on the same side? No one'd stand a chance."

"Maybe we should just do that," he snorted, "we'll throw a coup. You and me conquer the world and I'll put Sennen in therapy and you can run your own little paradise. Sound good?"

Atem laughed properly then, hefted Yugi a little off his toes and clumsy planted a wet kiss into the Imperial's cheek. Yugi's heart turned a little, happy, at home oddly and he wished desperately that he could take Horakhy to Cyprus and lock Yami in a room with him. Surely if Horakhty could do this to him he could chill Sennen out a few degrees and put the whole Empire on defrost.

"Hey," Yugi supposed as Atem plopped him back down, "any chance I could take you hostage?"

"Eh…" Atem blinked, cringed but genuinely considered it.

"Call it even for last time."

"That doesn't sound like a fab idea," the Bohemian mumbled but was hesitant; "if…well, if you convince Sennen I didn't hurt you then maybe. I just don't want to get shot before an interrogation ya know?"

"Point," Yugi chuckled, "kind of hard for you to give therapy if you're gagged and riddled with bullets."

"I'd try."

"I bet you would."

"Did with you," he quipped.

"Look how well that turned out Sunshine."

"Why?" Atem grinned, "Looks pretty good to me."

Sad thing was, in the muslin light stealing through the curtains, soaked in the air of ripe cherries, fermenting forest floor and rain it did look pretty good. Atemu's hair, his skin, was gritty either with stubble or sand and tracing the bones to the purse of the lips still smiling Yugi didn't consider running away with him. Not really. Not for more than a second anyway.

* * *

(Track- "Serverus and Lily" Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows soundtrack)

They passed off well. Yugi watched Atem drift off down a long dirty cobbled street in Kul Elna and taking the Knights back to the previous night's stables recovered their mechs in perfect condition. HQ picked their trackers going in the wrong direction about four in the afternoon and the Minister for Defence decided to try hounding him on the private cell Yami usually hazed him over for falling off cliffs.

"Motou," Mahado clarified again, "your orders are to pass through Kul Elna back into Rebel territory."

"Calling them rebels officially now are we?" Yugi snorted, readjusting his ear piece plugged into the actual phone snug in his belt. The response suit sung in the MAG1C. "Didn't know you were that old school Minister."

"Motou," he sounded uncomfortable now about the slip of the tongue, "this is a direct violation of orders. The Emperor won't be pleased."

Were he and Yami so transparent in their alliance that Mahado now thought that was a legitimate threat to hold over Yugi's head? Heh, the Minister probably was just at such a loss, as usual, that he was trying blind. Yami was, after all, the only man Yugi had ever properly taken orders from. Weirder than that however Mahado sounded a little…nervous? Stalwart, stiff faced, Mahado who hardly ever pulled an expression that wasn't time for civil effect _nervous?_ Had so much happened in the month Yugi had been gone for?

"I'm quaking in my suit," Yugi teased, voice effortless but gut tight. "Seriously Minister keep your pants on. I've got new intel."

"Pardon?"

"Top secret," he explained blandly. "I've got to talk to the Emperor before I ass off anywhere else. You've had me running in circles for almost a month. I'm coming back for a decent fucking meal, a recap and a meeting. If you don't like it take it up with Emperor Sennen."

"Motou, I am warning you one last time," Mahado came across sterner this time but Yugi flustered him on a regular basis so was hardly perturbed. "This is plain disobedience. My orders come from the Emperor and if you choose to proceed I can't be held responsible for whatever punishment he might see fit to deal out."

"I'm terrified."

Mahado sighed deeply but wouldn't let it go. Worried? Cautious? Yugi couldn't place it but he sensed things in the capital were spiralling.

"Motou, whatever it is you need to tell the Emperor, it might be best to organize a call on a secure line. We're a little backed up here."

"Not an option," Yugi dismissed but for a moment he felt a stirring of pity for the poor bastard. "You need to relax a little Minister. I know what I'm doing."

"I…" another thick breath, "don't forget to buzz HQ when you're within five clicks of the Capital Motou. The hangar's not prepped yet."

"The hangar's always prepped!" He snorted.

"Unfortunately large numbers of military and engineering staff are currently diverted off to new assignments."

"Away from the capital?" Yugi fathomed. "That's security bullshit! Who's watching your asses?"

"I was trying to figure that out before you called." He sounded tired.

"The Emperor order this shit?"

"Yes."

Yugi lost air for a moment. _What the hell are you doing?_ He was helpless without soldiers in the Capital especially if Yugi was supposed to be on the other side of the map. Someone, some part of Yami perhaps, was making space and making moves. Not good.

"I'll be there in less than five," he promised.

"You're at least another twelve hours out Motou," Mahado sympathised miserably. "I can't get you an air lift either. All the techies from that division have gone missing too. I can't find anyone."

"I'll be there in five," Yugi repeated tone creeping harder.

"Mo-"

Yugi cut the line. He'd bet his ass it was being monitored. He'd bet his ass the tracker in their mechs, the same one that had told Mahado they were going the wrong way, had also told those black ops no-names where he was last night for another attempted assassination. There was no way the Kaiba brothers were in on this. No way. Everything else was getting way too weird way too fast. Whatever was wrong with Yami, whatever brain aneurism, was getting worse.

Well Yugi was getting home and fucking it's shit up toot-suite.

"Boys," he flicked the radio, "throttles down. We're docking back in the Capital by sunset if I have to break this mech open."

"Everything good boss?"

"Nope," he admitted brazenly, "so we're clearing clicks. Got me?"

"_Sir yes sir!_" The three most reliable men in the world, behind Horakhty, chorused proudly.

* * *

**Next Time**: the Capital is in quiet chaos as personnel and administration staff seem to be missing en masse, Yugi's reunion with the Emperor turns bizarre, after making a choice Yugi finds Jou in a frenzy and, finally, the Knights decide to infiltrate the outer laboratories. What exactly is Yugi dealing with and is it too late to stop it…?

**Chapters until Yugi and Heba meet:** 1 (Chapter 26)  
**Chapters until first significant character death?** Not telling~


	25. Chapter 25

Hey Gorgeous ones! So there's something like… seven or so chapters left now. Seems insane doesn't it? Hope you enjoy this week!

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE  
(Track- One Republic "Apologize")

Yugi didn't bother getting changed. There wasn't any time nor any point he saw in bothering. The hangar was almost empty when they docked bar an absolute skeleton crew which had been run ragged jumping left, right and centre for Mahado all day. Where the rest of the empire's best mechanics, techies, grease-monkeys and engineers had wandered off to was a loss for Yugi. Where most of the guards had split too was equally mysterious. This wasn't good. Droves of men and women gone, whisked off, somewhere under someone's orders without any obvious explanation.

It was a great way to stir chaos, to get things lost…

He reached the palace wing where Sennen's new office resided as red evening light was blistering, peeling, through the open windows sickly deep and off-putting. He expected the little cluster of uneasy politicians and managerial staff waiting outside the double doors. What he didn't expect was Mana, on her seat by Sennen's new receptionist, sniffling thickly into a borrowed handkerchief trying to keep her mascara from running down her blouse. Leant into her knees, her dress pants, Sennen's new secretary Vivian, or something, was patting her back consolingly.

"The hell I miss?" Yugi greeted stoutly propping one hand onto the desk top.

"Nothing," Mana dismissed tiredly, sniffing quickly. "I'm just being a big baby, overtired, it's nothing."

"Yeah, right," he scoffed. "Who's in with Sennen?"

"I don't know," Mana sighed, then scuttling over her shoulder. "Viv? What's the book say?"

"I…" the dark woman fluttered over the desk to find the meeting ledger, sighing. "I don't know. He cancelled everyone. He even cancelled the Ministry meeting. He's been on the phone all day, I think, I don't know…"

"To who?" Yugi snapped, free hand finding his hip.

"I don't know," Vivian mumbled looking to him like a lost child left abandoned in a grocery store, "I keep hearing him yell at Heba but I don't have a damn clue who that's supposed to be. He doesn't tell me shit."

"Heba?" Yugi soured, turning his nose up as he scrunched.

"No clue?" Mana sighed. "Fuck, I was hoping you'd know at least."

"Never heard of it," he admitted thickly sullen, both hands running down his thighs as he stood. "The hell's going on here?"

"I don't know."

"No one knows shit then," Yugi snapped. "What have you all been sitting on your asses while I was gone?"

"What am I supposed to do?" Mana slapped her hand down on the table.

"How long has he even been in there?"

"I don't know!" She moaned defensively.

"I…" Vivian swallowed. "He was in before I got here at seven. I haven't seen him come out all day."

"Be just our fucking luck if he's dead." Yugi spat. "Anyone actually checked on him?"

"Not…not really," Mana tried but fell into a sigh running her hands over her face and through her hair. "He wouldn't let me in. I tried but he…"

"Christ," Yugi hissed. "Fucking good the lot of you are then."

He twisted, boots on perfect plush carpet and steeled himself for the door. Vivian jumped up into stutters, the other quiet political faces round them glanced covertly over their stacks of paperwork cradled in folded arms, and Mana was the only one to try, very softly, to halt him.

"You can't go in there," Mana hissed, "the Emperor specifically said-"

"I don't give a fuck!" Yugi spat shoving past her. "He can execute me for treason then. Are you going to stop me or are you going to let me get in there and check on him?"

"I…" the woman, plucky and limber as she had always been, seemed older shaking by him as her fingers unhinged from his wrist. "Please I… I don't know what's wrong with him…he's… He's been acting_ weird_."

"Can say that again," Yugi murmured. "Just stay here alright?"

"A-alright," Mana surrendered, face falling. "Be careful won't you?"

"I'll be fine," he dismissed boldly even as his stomach turned, "I'm more worried about him."

"Me too," She whispered confessional.

Brushing past her, fingers tapping gently at her shoulder with something like affection Yugi found the handle to the office door and twisting it cautiously inhaled past his own anxiously knotted throat. He didn't know what he expected these days but the not knowing frightened him. He had this niggling sense that one day he would open this door, one day very soon, and find something totally monstrous behind it.

* * *

(Track- Carter Burwell "Twilight Overture")

It was so dark, so impossibly dark that the looming office felt like a primal cave from the dawn of time. Where had all the light gone?

"Majesty?" He didn't like the word but coughing it out dryly Yugi let himself into the darkened pit. In the dimming afternoon light trying to split the impenetrable, heavy, floor length curtains he could barely make out the desk and spreading his hands before him Yugi crept forward cautiously. "Yami? You in here?"

The air smelt wrong but not quite like blood. Yugi's knee bumped the coffee table and he swore.

"Y-yugi?" He croaked.

He sounded pitiful.

Shuffling Yugi tried to follow the trail of the groan and giving up entirely sunk to his knees to crawl across the carpet to the edge of the desk. He hobbled onto his knees and round the edge of the wood, saw half a form-

"Shit! Yami!" He reached hands fumbling over the man's chest. "What's wrong? What the hell happened to you?"

Yami sat dependent upon the frame of the desk mostly sprawled on the floor, legs out straight before him, head lulling into his shoulder as he groaned up towards the window. Even in the almost complete darkness Yugi could make out his gaunt features, the stark profile, the exhaustion. He didn't look like Yami Sennen anymore. He didn't look like the confident, prim, codger who lectured him so well.

"Yami?" Yugi pressed cupping his face in his hands to try and assert himself in the man's dazed vision. "Yami what's wrong with you?"

"I blacked out again…" he mumbled. "I don't even…what day is it now?"

"Did you take something?" Yugi snapped near frustration and panic.

"No…" Yami blinked groggily, eyes glassy, "I just… Heba said…"

"_Heba?_" He stressed. That fucking name again, of course, he clutched Yami's face tighter. "Who the fuck is Heba? Yami, please, this guy isn't good news. The more I hear people talk about him the more… Yami you look like shit. What did he do to you?"

"Suppos'd to get easier…" the Emperor mumbled on and off, "teething time…said _m_-I'd adjust…forcing a cattle prod through a strainer…"

"Yami?" The Emperor's head lulled dumbly in his hands and panicking Yugi fumbled up higher on his knees fingers dancing over the man's pulse point. "Yami! _Yami!_"

"Ke-_m_pe blacking…" he hazed into Yugi's shoulder weakly.

"Yami," he hissed, forcing them nose to nose. "Who's Heba?"

"No..." he groaned shaking his jaw into Yugi's palms. "Doesn't matter Darling…"

"Yes! Yes it does!" Yugi spat clutching him tighter. "Tell me!"

"Need him," Yami mumbled, "to win."

"No you don't," the pilot asserted firmly, "you've got me. I'm here. I'll win for you. You don't need some _freakazoid_."

"Couldn't do this…" Yami croaked, "wasn't brave enough to do any of this without…"

"No, no," Yugi railed, frenzied, trying to draw back the man's eye contact as his pupils rolled, "you're fucking fierce. You don't need anyone. He's making you _sick_. Isn't he? I don't know how but-"

"You don't need me…"

"_What?_" He twisted. "What are you talking about?"

"People are rotten…"

The thoughts, the mumbles, were only half realized slurring in Yami's mouth. They came out discordant and confused. He was off his fucking ass on something. In layman's terms the Emperor was high as a motherfucking kite.

"You're sick," Yugi insisted. "We need to get you checked out. Come on. We'll call a med crew-"

"No!" Yami groaned hand pushing blindly at Yugi's chest to shrug the pilot back. "No, no…"

Yugi tried to hold him, fingers searching out to seek round Yami's torso and shoving hard the man kicked and pushed till losing his balance Yugi fell back onto his arse shoulders hitting the wall under the window.

"Ya-"

"Shut up!" The Emperor groaned into his hands. Exhaling hard he struggled to grasp the edge of the desk and as Yugi shuffled onto his elbows from where he'd been cramped the man hefted himself onto one unsteady leg. "Don't you have work you should be doing? I thought you were supposed to be in Kul Elna."

_You fucking idiot. Does your head even known what your mouth's saying?_

"Focus on this for a fucking second!" Yugi shrieked.

"I can't!" He roared back hard, messy and stumbling, hand shooting down to curl in Yugi's collar and heft the pilot up onto his knees with a wrenching, rib shaking, tug. "I'm fighting a war on two fronts surrounded by useless plebeians. I seem to be the only one here doing their _fucking_ job or the only one who understands the enormity of the situation and if I lose this throne I swear to god you will be the first on the block._ Do you understand me?_"

Yugi blinked, hands flying to his own neck to try and protect himself instinctively. Part of him worried, rightly, that the Emperor was switching back to that funny brand of homicidal. He didn't understand this. He didn't understand any of this. What was happening? What was wrong?

"Do you understand?" Sennen roared shaking him roughly. "Answer me!"

"_Yes!_ Yes!" Yugi grunted, panicking, pushing at the fingers curled too tight in his collar. He didn't like those eyes. He didn't know those eyes. "_Get the fuck off me!_"

A growl, Yami pushed, and falling back the side of Yugi's head clunked, rattling, into the plaster of the windowsill. His eyes scrunched and as Sennen slumped into the desk, trying to catch himself and find purchase Yugi's hand clutched at his aching head. He twisted from his side and pushed off and stumbling rough in the darkness like a blind ship at sea forced his way across the unearthly, sickly, blackened office.

* * *

(Track- Celtic Woman "The Voice")

_Thrump-thump-bump-bump_

Yugi could practically taste his own heartbeat as he stalked viciously past Mana, cringing outside the Emperor's office, and carried himself down the hallway without another word. He couldn't breathe, the air was locked up in a straightjacket between his ribs and wouldn't come to him. He inhaled brokenly as he turned the third corner, entering that quiet subspace of the palace where no one was, on the way back to the royal quarters. He made a distant attempt to blink round the burn in his eyes.

_Wrong.  
_  
Everything was _wrongwrongwrong_.

Something inside Yugi, something small, quiet and delicate which purred to Atem was crying now as he fought it externally. He was striding, all composure, but with every step he was half way to hyperventilating. Abused, threatened, scarred he found half a dozen factors were assembling round him that all pointed to: Yami's trying to _fucking kill you_. Warrior's instinct, that battlefield guts and blood voice that told Yugi when to strike and when to hold however insisted something wasn't right. Something was royally, epically, fucked up. Dreams weren't dreams anymore and either Yugi was going insane or there was something very fucking _evil_ in this house.

Who the fuck was Heba?

He didn't know but he suspected that, like usual, he was going to have to figure it out by himself before Yami went Jekyll and Hyde on him again and this time went through with it. He was not dying the suffocated whore who slept a little too late next to the insane Emperor. Something was wrong. He could taste the snot running back down his throat as he sniffed and the bile and blood in his stomach told him, everything told him, it was getting real bad real fast.

A storm was coming. Yugi could taste the lightning.

No more bullshit. He had two options: run off to the Republic and switch sides or stay and duke it out in a type of warfare he'd never encountered.

He strode past the guards to his rooms, threw the door shut, and didn't stop gliding through the sitting room to the bedroom to the wardrobe. He must've looked murderous on the security cameras (_good_).

He slipped through the darkness of the passage into Yami's wardrobe and sliding the hidden door shut after him slumped, finally, to his knees. His arms fastening round his middle, imitating Atem's warm hold, Yugi curled in and moaning howled agonizingly into his own stomach. Just for a moment he gave a sob, just for a second, cause just outside there were cameras and very soon he was going to have to confront whatever lingering within Yami's psyche wanted him slaughtered. Yugi only had a second to grieve anything, to plan anything and moaning everything was _fucked_.

It wasn't supposed to be like this but chances were Yugi had pushed things this way with a million little things. The Underground, the threat of being dragged back to a laboratory and dissected was gone but somewhere between them Yugi suspected neither he nor Yami really thought the Emperor believed his lies. It was another little thing they'd let fester. Yugi had lied about Atem. Yugi had let those horrid midnight sleep walking's of Yami's slip. He'd told himself they were nightmares cause that was simpler but it was also bullshit. Yami had been acting like this in the night and now it was leeching into the day. Regardless of whose fault it was he… he sniffed…

Two choices remained: run or stay.

_Chose now or forever hold your peace_.

Yugi dragged the back of his palm under his nose, sniffing deep, and hauling himself up on his knees glanced slackly to his right. In his slump he could see the bottom of the drawers, the stacks of clothes, the bits and pieces put to one side in the Emperor's wardrobe and-

Yugi craned his neck up. Above the coat hangers, in a pile recently disturbed on a shelf over Yami's million blazers, Yugi could spy golden buttons.

He wiped his eyes and crawling up onto all fours and then his feet he hauled himself towards it. It was compelling somehow though Yugi knew the little buttons or the garment would be nothing special.

He contorted himself, jumped, too short and ripping the end of it out from under a pile of old unworn shirts pulled the jacket into his arms. It was old, pungent with sweat, and immediately after catching it Yugi knew it was from the Emperor's active military days in his early twenties. Yugi fondled it briefly, held it out, and it was still two sizes too big but it was simple, old, and humble. It was _Minister Sennen_, not_ Emperor Sennen_, it smelt right.

He dipped his fingers into the pockets and between a little spare change found…

Yugi pressed the dog tags between his fingers, let them grind against each other emblazoned, and could hardly believe his luck. Yami's tags weren't really any different from his.

This, all of this, was coming with Yugi back to his room and then into his cockpit on his next mission. He needed these mementos in a childish way he'd never needed anything physical or menial and commoditized. He pressed the steel to his lips, palm flat and found his fingers were shaking.

Choice made Yugi knew he wasn't running off to the Republic or to Atem. Not yet anyway. Maybe when Yami was fixed, maybe when he was sane, maybe when he wasn't accusing Kaiba of murder or trying to strangle Yugi then the pilot would toss him to the curb. Until then Yugi was saving him.

This was, funnily, his first ever rescue mission.

* * *

(Track- Emilie Autumn "Don't Blame Me")

Yugi slipped the tags on, stuffed them under his collar, and illogical as it was he felt stronger when he tied the arms of the Yami's jacket round his waist and let it hang on his hips. He felt ready for war. First port of call was to gather the troops.

The ragtag tagalongs he'd been rather endeared to where exactly where they should've been, right where he left them, but not in the same spirit. Something in the air, some miasma from a plague ridden city, had sunk into the millimetres of their part of HQ and when Yugi found them they were _screaming_ at each other.

Jou and Honda looked to be on the edge of uncharacteristic fisticuffs and stalling in the doorway Yugi found that they didn't even notice him. Was there a radio tower somewhere in the city pumping out crazy-wild-animal frequency or something? (Would explain why Yugi was the only one immune cause he couldn't get any more fucking primal at this point)

"Hey," Yugi snapped.

…

Fuckers _ignored_ him.

Oh no. 'Lord of the Flies' re-enactment or not no one ignored Yugi _fucking_ Motou.

"_The fuck is going on?!_" Yugi boomed, extending the sounds as if he were appealing himself over a room of school children or a rowdy barracks.

Hesitantly Jou, Honda and Otogi stuttered to the end of their tirades against each other. The scruffy blonde sharp shooter held still in a headlock by Honda who clocked in at about the same weight.

"Please," Otogi sighed tensely, "tell Katsuya here we can't just go breaking into a high security military laboratory?"

"The fuck do you want to do that for?" He snapped.

Silence.

"One of you _is_ going to tell me," Yugi warned viciously, "or I'm going to beat the ever loving shit out of _all_ of you. Well?"

"It's…" Jou paused, glaring covertly at Honda and in a rough shrug forced himself free of the reluctant brunette. "It's my sister. I think she's got in something bad."

"Essay question; Explain."

"Her landlord called me, said she hasn't paid her rent in like four months," Jou murmured. "He wanted me to come get her stuff out of her apartment cause she won't answer his calls. It…we snuck round and no one's lived there for months and months. Everything in the fridge had evolved! She hasn't even taken half her clothes! She left a window open and its rained through it like six times as far as I can tell!"

"She stopped answering your calls?" Yugi frowned. Hadn't the blonde called her round Christmas?

"She told me she was spending a lot of time in the labs but she hasn't told me about any of this," Jou paled, "she didn't…she_ sounds_ normal but…she's not like this. She's responsible."

"So that's good enough to break into a laboratory because?" He pushed.

Something was wrong here. He could see it in the way they looked between each other. Caught children not wanting to own up to something they figured Yugi would laugh at them for. Otogi however had probably always been the wisest of them.

"I tried to have a look on the database for info about the labs," Otogi shrugged, "Shizuka's boss didn't show up. So I…"

"Shat your pants?_ What?_" Yugi pushed roughly.

"I tried to hack the classified records…" He admitted eyes scrapping the floor. "I didn't get far or anything I just thought it'd calm him down, ya know?"

"You find anything?"

Otogi startled a little but collected himself and another look exchanged between them.

"Nah," he shook himself nonchalantly. "I couldn't get in but I tried looking for him on the search engine. Figured maybe he'd have a facebook or a newspaper prize or something so Jou could see he wasn't some axe murderer."

"Yeah," Jou snapped, "he's not. He's a fucking demon."

"That's not fucking possible you dipshit!" Otogi rounded on him. "For Christ's sake!"

"And how'd we get to this?" Yugi grunted drawing them back.

"I found a few things," Otogi sighed, "but the most recent thing I could find was an obituary for a Doctor Dia Bound about two years ago."

"Two _years_." Jou stressed. "So either her boss is a liar or she's trying to sneak me a message or something! What if they're bugging her phone?"

"Jesus," Yugi sighed, Jou was hitting the conversation at about three points simultaneously. They'd obviously been arguing this for a while. "You ever stop to think maybe it's not the same fucking person?"

"I told him that," Honda grumbled.

"But-"

"She works at the outer labs right?" Yugi rued it. Everything bad seemed to circulate round that place from Mahado's intel on the issue. Certainly when Yugi was a child it had been called The Underground and it had been a diabolical place. "Call her and _very casually_ ask her for her boss's name."

Jou swallowed, they exchanged awkward looks, and a lot of dudders all of them sat down tensely to watch the blonde begin a cautious bout of texting with his baby sister. Yugi crossed his arms, tired, and leant into his hip.

"Okay," Jou mumbled a moment later, sagging a little. "You guys were right…"

Air flooded back in temporarily as Honda sighed.

"What's his name?" Otogi pushed gently trying to assuage their fight.

"Heba Bound," Jou grunted disinterestedly.

_"What?"_

Yugi must not have held his tongue as well as he would've hoped because they were all quite suddenly blinking at him. Yugi ceased to care.

"What was that?" He repeated.

"Heba," Jou answered dumbly, "Doctor Heba Bound runs the outer labs."

"Heba…" Yugi felt like he had a flashback montage of every time he'd heard that stupid fucking name that seemed to have no origin. "_Heba_."

"You know him?" Honda leant into his knees uneasily.

"No," Yugi confessed, "but I do know he's bad news. Jou's right. Something's wrong. We're going to the outer labs."

"_What?_" Honda fumbled.

"We'll never get clearance for that!" Otogi stumbled a second later cawing.

"R-really…?" Jou coiled. "You think…? She'll be okay though won't she?"

"I don't know," Yugi snapped, "I do know this Heba's been fucking the Emperor though. I think he's drugging him. Whoever he is he's got his fingers in all the pies and I'm sick of it. We're breaking and entering if we have to. I want to know who the fuck this guy is. Cause the more I hear the more he sounds dangerous."

_Commence Operation._

* * *

(Track- Emilie Autumn "If I Burn")

The outer laboratories were bizarre. They had always seemed half built, in a constant state of flux between realized and unformed. When Yugi was a child they'd been called The Underground. Hence Yugi, unsurprisingly, preferred to avoid them but that didn't mean he didn't remember the layout of the central hub well enough. They'd dug and constructed a lot further out than he remembered mind but he knew the core enough to guess the pieces round it.

The Knights didn't have to go to much effort to slip their mechs out of the hangar in the Palace. There was almost no security in the capital given Sennen had apparently diverted _hundreds_ to the labs. Which only made it even weirder when, docking them in a hiding spot along the hillside in one of the remaining swatches of forestry, Yugi pressed his binoculars to his temples and couldn't spot any obvious guard routine round the facility. The hell were they all doing in there?

"What's the plan?" Otogi supposed crouched beside him.

"We're round on the old side," Yugi mumbled, "with any luck the old drain pipe's still here. We break in and we start looking."

"Place has to be rigged with security cameras."

"We're four of the most important soldiers in the empire," he scoffed tossing the binoculars to Otogi, "just get in there and prance like you're meant to be there. They won't even notice. Think you can manage Ryuji?"

"I'll just look nervous behind your lead," he snorted, "usually works."

"Heh," Yugi grinned. "Let's do this."

* * *

(Track- continue)

Sure enough the old passage Yugi remembered was still there. It was a junction in a series of aqueducts that dragged fresh, pure, underground water into the facility and following the maintenance passages that ran underground with them after a little squirming he managed to bring them out in the hub of the underground generator. The boys were a little sweaty, a little bruised, when they managed it but Yugi had been in a deplorable condition the first time he'd tried to break out of this facility so all things considered they weren't in such bad health. Really tracing the old memories was difficult and Yugi unhappily astounded himself with how much he remembered about what vents lead where.

Quietly they followed the corrugated gangway steps upwards to the ground floor away from the thrumming, thumping, steam filled humidity of the generators and boilers they'd entered through.

The ground floor was just as Yugi remembered it too: a long winding hallway of white wash, windowless and stark. As he took the first step onto the smoothed concrete floors the smell of antiseptic hit him and wheezing he stalled so suddenly Jou bumped into his back.

Yugi hadn't been here for ten years. Not since he was the experiment. His index finger and trigger finger twitched by his thigh as all at once his head spun off course in a convulsion where memory meets nightmare.

"Hey, Boss," Jou mumbled. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Yugi breathed, inhaling sharply through his nostrils to bolster himself. Queasy. "This place is just fucking creepy." He'd never wanted to step foot inside it.

"Amen," Jou shuddered.

"Okay, let's go." He ordered. "Stick with me."

* * *

(Track- Elfen Lied "Music Box Extended")

"Where is everyone?" Honda whispered by his shoulder as they strode down another empty hallway in the expanse of the hive.

"I don't know." Yugi mumbled.

There should've been people, somewhere, in this joint. Especially if hundreds of staff had been added to the existing contingent of geneticist, researchers, engineers and technicians already on site but in twenty minutes (give or take, it was so hard to tell here) they'd yet to pass another human soul going in either direction.

"Where's your sister work?" Otogi pestered Jou.

"I don't know," he sighed, "genetics I think."

Yugi could hear them getting ruffled. The air here was too dehumidified, too artificial, and like rats in a maze they were becoming off put by the nature of their surroundings. Yugi would've calmed them, berated them, but it was all he could do not to shudder himself and stiffen every time they rounded a corner.

'_You have to eat Yugi._'

He swallowed as the memory spasmed at the back of his mind like an eel slipping between the current sheets of comfort and sass he'd established as an adult. He remembered that. The stupid bleach blonde woman (Dia?) who ran TU and who had tsked at him when he told her, bluntly, that food was unnatural, dirty, that it tasted funny and he refused to try and scarf it down however his belly ached. Whatever the hunger pains he'd never wanted anything they'd presented him with. He'd gone almost a month on a drip before they realized that it didn't put him off as much as swallowing did.

They rounded another corner and Yugi could hear computers, pattering, and at the little buzz of electronic life he pressed his fingers to his lips and glanced back over his shoulder. The boys nodded curtly and slinking a little quieter Yugi approached the nearest office door.

The suited, white coated, staff inside didn't even blink up as Yugi peaked in. They just stared, blankly, over their screens in tune with the incessant slapping of keyboards. Yugi watched, handle in his fingers, standing carefully in the gap as he passed his eyes over the control room thirty something strong.

They weren't pale, not really, no they…They were gaunt, blue under the eyes and yellow in the cheeks…

Starved.

Yugi's eyes fluttered more sharply over the room for details then, skirting downward, his vision was drawn the floor closest him.

There was a man, unconscious, on the floor. Totally forgotten and so spindly Yugi could see every bone in his clavicle.

All at once he saw the rest of them, across the room, under desks or strewn openly on the floor. Men, women, in sagging too-big lab coats discarded from where they'd slipped from their chairs and been replaced with new worker bees. To his right Yugi saw a woman whose chest wasn't fluctuating as it should've been to take in new air. To his left, in the far corner, he saw…this place was too clean to have flies but it…they…

Yugi's first impulse was to scream but very calmly, instead, he clicked the door shut again.

The others were taller. They'd stolen little glimpses over his shoulder but Yugi doubted they had the full picture. Still Jou was sickly pallid.

Yugi walked, kept walking, till they reached the door at the end of this hall and with simultaneously more and less trepidation he twisted a new handle. The door wasn't locked.

It was a staff room caked in a layer of dust. There were dishes on the rack that were dusty. The coffee pot in the corner was _green_. Yugi shut the door.

The next four doors weren't locked and with each one he felt increasingly unprepared for what he might find. Jou, Honda, and Otogi with a nervous energy all their own wordlessly began following suit in his inspection. They opened every door they found, never really strayed from the thresholds, and found no locks nor any security who came to ask them what they were doing.

The next door Yugi opened was onto another hallway and unable to react properly anymore, his entire body stunted in horrified awe with half a gasp behind his teeth. He slumped his shoulders and allowed the boys to file in behind him.

"Should…should we check them?" Honda coughed dryly.

There were bodies, more of them, scattered along the passage totally forgotten and fresh.

"Yeah," Yugi answered dumbly.

They strode, Jou turned over one carefully with his boot, Otogi another and squatting Yugi pressed his fingers the neck of a man propped against the wall.

"Alive," Jou whispered.

"Here too," Honda concurred.

"Yeah," Yugi agreed staring into the blank, vegetable, stare of the man who was just barely breathing before him.

He snapped his fingers before the man's nose. Nothing.

Yugi saw it then. White, viscous, fluid seeping out of his ears and hesitantly Yugi swiped a bit from his neck to roll between his gloved fingertips. What the hell…?

"What is that?" Jou breathed leaning onto his knees behind him.

"I don't know," Yugi whispered, and taking the man's dull shoulder he tugged him to roll him over on a hunch.

Behind him, matted in the hair at the base of his skull, more pasty white dribbled down the man's neck and pushing back the clumped follicles that all but fell out under his prodding Yugi found a wound, a bloodless splotch, where the drip started.

"Spinal fluid?" Otogi whispered clustering up with them.

"Is that even possible?" Honda sounded dreadfully hoarse.

"It shouldn't be," Yugi wheezed. "It's like something blew their brains out. They're total stiffs."

"This…" Jou broke in his syllables. "This isn't…"

"I don't know what we're dealing with," Yugi admitted, glancing to them. "But this isn't good."

Two words, in the fuzzy white-noise space at the back of Yugi's mind, slipped lurching to the surface in suggestion:

_Mind Slaves_.

He wouldn't dare say it out loud.

* * *

1 Oh yes, you heard right, _Mind Slaves_. Just like the type Marik used to keep with the rod.  
2 Doctor Dia Bound also ran TU (which is why Yugi vaguely remembers a woman with the name Dia) and should currently be running the Outer Labs. She isn't however because, well, Heba laid her off so to speak~

Extra Songs:  
Yugi's Theme- "What Doesn't Kill You" Kelly Clarkson + "Gaslight" Emilie Autumn  
Heba- "Still Alive" Portal 1 + "Girls! Girls! Girls!" Emilie Autumn + "O Death" Supernatural (full version)

**Next Chapter:** Shizuka or Number Four is uncooperative at best, whoever runs the lab doesn't care about petty things like '_due process_' and Yugi comes to face something,_ someone_, who shows him why exactly his mind has been trying _so hard_ to forget the first eight years of his life…


	26. Chapter 26

Alright so, like you've all been waiting for, Heba and Yugi meet! Hopefully it lives up to everyone's expectations but I don't think there's any right way to write this given I'm sure you all have your own ideas about how it should go down.

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX  
(Track- Barasuishou's Character Theme "Shungo")

They hurried their pace through the labs. Doors opened, more bodies, more untouched offices, more bones, more rotten food, more thrumming computers and as they passed a gangway over a hangar dull eyed engineers toiled away without ever noticing them.

Jou started to peel into the lead ahead of Yugi and the tension was palatable. This wasn't right, this wasn't possible, this was…how could something like this happen in the empire? Who? How? _Why? _Why _here?_ Yugi had always thought this place was evil but why did the ruination of his happiness have to come from this place. How come no one knew about this? Was Yami responsible for this? Was Yugi? Who knew? Who didn't? What did they do?

Jou kicked the next door, Otogi took the one to their right and there was an understanding that they did it together and they all took turns at least so if anyone was going to see something horrible, unimaginable, any one of them had just as much chance of facing it as another. Jou found nothing and resumed a lead as they left a breadcrumb trail of strewn open doorways as their only way of orientating themselves in the labyrinth.

Yugi could almost hear the blonde's racing, rabbiting, heartbeat rattling right out of his chest. His little sister was here somewhere and the odds thus far weren't good if they wanted to find her as anything more than a withered husk. Yugi followed a little closer behind struck by the pack like need to be supportive. He wasn't prone to empathy but this… _this is Jou_ part of him sung bitterly._ This is Jou and he might be about to face something unimaginable_.

They all galvanized closer.

As they reached the end of the passage they found a set of double doors and as Jou reached for the handles Yugi took one taking stride beside him. The blonde jolted, as if he'd forgotten Yugi was even there, and for a second their eyes met. An inhale, their glance, their moment and in the electricity of the connection Yugi nodded; _I'm here and we're going to kick their asses. No one gets away with this_. Pallid, queasy in the eyes, Jou smiled but seemed to want to cry. They were together, while Honda and Otogi hugged their backs, and they'd do this together because they were a _fucking team_.

Yugi had never had something like this. He'd never felt something like this unity that was so filial. His heart was aching for Jou, for his sister, for Yami and over his own hatred for this place was the bizarre but powerful urge to get all of them out of here safe. It was like… like family. That hadn't been Yugi's intention. He'd never wanted a team but…these were his guys.

Together he and Jou parted the doors to stand in the entryway hip by hip with savage eyes and tensely knitted shoulders. Another command room, more consoles, more gaunt drones tapping away and a lab-coated supervisor who looked distinctly healthier than the grunts round her.

"Shizuka!" Jou cried on impulse.

She startled, dropped her clipboard in the flare of sound and pivoting on ballet flats turned chocolaty, focused, eyes upon them.

"Jou…?" She flustered. "What are you doing here?"

"Taking you home," Jou informed gruff and curt already closing the gap to grasp her elbow hard.  
"We're getting the fuck out of here _right now._"

"Jou, relax," she sighed pushing off his hand. "Please. You're embarrassing me."

"Too bad, so sad," Yugi snapped, drawing her attention as Honda and Otogi filled in behind him. "No one cares. Get your shit."

"Who…?" Shizuka seemed to comprehend then the kind of friends her scraggly and terrified brother had brought. She reassessed, in just a second, and meeting the man dead on began giving orders. "Jou, go home. You shouldn't be here. This is a top secret facility and the Knights don't have clearance."

"No," he pulled her harder, painfully close to just throwing the twig of a girl over his shoulder. "You're coming with me right now. I don't know what you're doing here but it's_ fucked_. There are bodies_ everywhere_."

"Jou…" She sighed, impatient, sympathetic for a second before she seemed to think he was a tantrum throwing child. "I know you don't get it and I can't explain it right now but you're going to have to trust me on this. Everything's fine, I'm fine, but this is_ so important_. Just take a breath and leave. Please."

"Carry her," Yugi ordered, "or I will."

"Seconded," Otogi sounded, Honda nodding curtly. They had his back on this one.

"If you don't leave, right now," Shizuka warned, "I'm going to have to call security and I really don't want to do that to you."

"Well I really don't care," Jou scoffed, "whatever the hell is going on here is fucking with your head."

"No! It's not!" She compelled stubbornly, exasperated. She hadn't even twitched at the mention of corpses littering her work place. "I'm doing good work here. Doctor Bound's going to make the whole world a better place!"

Yugi tightened, Doctor Heba Bound, he hated that name already and as Jou glanced back to him for approval Yugi gave it freely. They'd heard enough. Miss Hysteria was coming one way or another because whatever was fucking with Yami's head had obviously screwed hers over and inside out on itself. Jou got that, Yugi didn't even have to speak, and the guys were already checking over their shoulders to make an escape.

Jou went to change his grip, sick of arguing, half in the motion of throwing her over his shoulder when, catching it, she panicked hard enough to hit him. The slap rung out over his cheek, her knee drew up into his stomach and frantic she kicked out to push him back. The drones, the worker bees, at their computers hadn't even glanced up in all the shouting till slapping the consoles while Shizuka made a motion over the touch screen before Jou could close the gap to her again.

He got her by the waist about the same time the sirens starting blaring like fire alarms from the speakers in the facility. Otogi and Honda cringed simultaneously at the boom of the uncomfortable sound and hissing Yugi couldn't help his own flinch.

"Let's go!" He shouted over the blare as if they were in another dance club.

"Right!" Jou answered, all arms, suddenly very stout as, not caring if he flashed them a little of his sister's panties, he hauled the screaming female over his shoulder.

They turned on their heels to run then, full pedal, and with Honda in the lead, Jou stuck behind by the extra weight, they had to start the long weave back quickly. The whole motion of Jou's run was disrupted by the weight and glancing back to him Yugi couldn't dash like he wanted to. He didn't want to leave the blonde behind. He cared. He was going to get them killed. Even as he thought it though Jou grunted, put his shoulder in, and holding Shizuka's kicking legs tighter_ made_ himself run like a champion with the proper gait.

Yugi could find his stride then, confident Jou would hold the tail, and darting between Otogi and Honda took the lead to map their way out.

The whole dead beehive was alive suddenly, swimming with human noise, as they started the move. Whatever Jou's nutty sister had done it had sent up the alarm over the whole system and the entire little conspiracy was panicking.

They ran pass the engineering gangway and for the first time as they passed the workmen noticed, shouted, and pointed after them. Yugi followed their little breadcrumb trail of opened doors but they were bottle necked by corners and dead ends. He didn't know a faster way out though the outer labs had grown too much since they were The Underground.

Shizuka screamed, complained, and Yugi, if he'd had time, would've slapped her face in to shut her up because the sound wasn't helping him think. He turned down the nearest hallway, saw gunmen coming round the opposing end and scrapping on the brake pedal in his boots Jou almost fell into his back at the abrupt stop. Yugi pivoted, had to turn down a passage they didn't know and try to loop around.

More gunmen, another turn, increasingly their knot unravelled till Yugi began to lose his breath and knew they were being herded. He was hopelessly lost. He'd lost his whole orientation. He wasn't going to find a way out.

"_Halt!_" More of them.

Yugi tried to turn back. Otogi blocked his way as behind them there were already guards. It was inevitable that they'd eventually be trapped like this but Yugi's mind couldn't compute it as his heart pounded. No. They were supposed to escape.

"Tuck in," Yugi hissed over his shoulder as twisting in the four of them became a net to the forces creeping up on either side.

Fighting was a bad option. Jou couldn't fight without dropping the girl but it seemed the only choice. The guards wanted prisoners right now but Yugi didn't trust anyone in this place to be merciful in the long run.

The nearest made a jab for Yugi. He hissed, swung out and the violence was on.

There wasn't any room to move in the narrow corridor. They were surrounded. Yugi heard Shizuka cry out as Jou was forced to drop her and she hit the wall. Otogi made a noise, hit? Yugi didn't hear bullets but he heard the flat sides of rifles beating. He did what he always did: kicked, clawed, scratched, punched, spat, bit…

Three of them ended up dog piling him till eventually Yugi was hung tight between two much bigger men trying wrestle his hard to hold body into a steady position. Eventually a third had to wrap both arms round his legs. Yugi's aim was too good, too forceful, the arch of his flexibility too dexterous. He'd break shins at this rate but either way he gave the man who eventually grabbed his legs a nasty black eye with the heel of his boot which almost surely shattered the cheek bone.

Yugi panted, heaved, was entirely out of air and still squirming knew they'd grasped the others from how Honda was swearing profusely.

"Take them to lab 3," Shizuka coughed, flittering into Yugi's view shaking as she stumbled. "Sir will want to see them."

* * *

(Track- Rin/Len "A Tale of Moonlit Abandonment")

They were dragged, all four of them, into a long empty steel floored room with an observation window consuming one wall. It looked out over nothing but another empty white room boringly.

Yugi's feet didn't touch the ground in the move as they held him fastened between three groggy, sorry looking, guards. However as 'Sir' approached they made the mistake of shifting their grips to look professional. Bad choice.

Hefting his legs up Yugi kicked out like some wild horse, abruptly, struggling viciously all over again. He was sure he almost broke something in the two men trying to restrain him as the one on his left cried out gruffly. Yeah let the fuckers see how hard it was to hold a little squirming body when the holds were barred and dirty play was up for grabs.

"_Let me go!_" Yugi screeched. "You have any idea who I am?"

Then…

With the swish of the hydraulic door the room temp seemed to drop ten degrees. Yugi's temples tingled weirdly.

_He_ arrived.

"What is going on down here?"

Authoritative, slick, syllables rang out sharply and the whole toy soldier set of guards stiffened to become erect bumbling set pieces. Yugi adjusted in their strangle hold though Jou, Otogi and Honda had yet to relent struggling and grunting. He caught sight of the speaker and-

No way.

No _fucking_ way.

Yugi sagged a little, jaw fumbling, because sharp eyed and dreadfully well composed he… he _looked like Yugi_. He had the same form, almost identical composition but deeper eyes, a thicker glower, and was somehow impossibly more frigid. Those russet reds locked in on the pilot like tazser shots and sent ice up his spine followed by a tingle of electric fury. Another Yugi? The pilot made himself recover angrier than ever. If TU cloned him, he swore, he'd-

"Who the fuck are you?" Yugi spat. "You're Heba aren't you?"

The thick bottom lip became narrow against the top one the stranger's face passing between disgusted and unreadable.

"Aren't you just_ miraculous_," he scathed in chiding, before turning on the assembled staff who had the cringe of minions about to be thrashed. "How'd the pestilence get in? Hmm? _Well?_"

"Security lapse in sector nine Sir," one dull little man spoke up uncomfortably.

"Then every guard in sector nine can take a vacation _downstairs_." He emphasized hotly.

"Yes Sir."

"Those three," he gestured curtly, "euthanize and incinerate."

"You can't do that!" Otogi cried. "We're imperials! What about due process?"

"Mummy's busy, go play outside," he dismissed flicking his fingers and at once the otherwise stalwart guards, unquestioningly, hefted the struggling elites. He rounded back. "Hold _him_."

Yugi didn't need fucking radar to know who the wretched witch meant. He could guess if the scathing disdain wasn't telling enough. Yugi loosened fractionally in the arms laced tight round him and flickered over a thought of Yami. This guy was the problem somehow Yugi could just taste it. Something chemical was in the air. Something about the way this creature moved, how they spoke, how he held himself and how he smelt just reeked bad vibes. This was the source of whatever funny scent or unwarranted word he'd found on the Emperor. He just knew it. Which meant this fucking witch could burn in hell and Yugi intended to send him there right in this funhouse.

Jou, Honda, Otogi…Yugi needed to worry about them later. They were smart, he dismissed (he prayed), they'd think of something. First and foremost Yugi needed to stop this, destroy this, burn the witch.

Silence fell as the doors slammed shut and the sound of his Knights being dragged to their deaths faded into the distance. Yugi started to ready himself, muscles flexing, time for the throw down that counted.

"What are you doing to Yami?" He snapped. Might as well get to the point of it.

Heba snorted, too attractive but wrong. It was so freaky for Yugi to watch what was almost a mirror of himself look with such distain over him. The eyes were wicked. Not Atem's sweet muddled vermillion but congealed split vein red. Those were eyes that killed.

Where did Yami even find this guy?

"Playing," the other replied drolly, "he's convenient."

"You drugged him!" Yugi guessed. He wasn't sure. Whatever this thing had done to the Emperor and the staff here it lingered on the border of mind control Yugi didn't think possible.

"I poisoned you," he smiled smugly in retort.

Knew it, part of Yugi chorused, fucking _knew it_. Heba, the shadow hanging over them, of course he'd tried to wipe Yugi off the map. Yugi sensed again somehow as their eyes connected that he was a threat to this whoever just like Heba was an intrinsic threat to him. They were rivals even if they'd never met. Heba wanted him gone just as Yugi would waste him this very second as soon as he broke free. This thing, Yugi loathed to use a more human word, had done something poisonous and shattering to the inside of Yami that Yugi couldn't fight but Yugi could _kill_ the witch.

The witch smiled then, almost happily, dipping his chin to graze his eyes over Yugi's. It was almost like he heard it. Heard how much Yugi hated him on sight with every fibre of his being even though the pilot hadn't parted his lips yet to share. It made the witch _happy_.

"There are your instincts," Heba trilled softly, nodding knowingly over Yugi. "I can see it in you. You recognise the reckoning just like the betters of your pathetic mother species. You know the ruthless, merciless, vaccination. You know me."

"The fuck are you raving?" Yugi lilted hostile to the core. Anger blocked any real emotional interaction with what Heba sprouted, seemingly nonsensical, but something soft shuddered inside Yugi.

Heeled boots clipped the solid, smooth, floor and curling in closer as cold as Heba was he radiated something ravenous when he nearly brought their noses together.

"I scoured the earth of life." He whispered. "Bright lights, screams, heaven's _fire_ melting skin and cities into primordial tar. Remember little one?"

Yugi blinked slowly. Part of it flew right over him but there was a hook there that sunk past his imagination into his subconscious and suddenly, horrifically, his inner child was _screaming_. Terror he didn't quite understand bit his belly, his fingers twitched, and every nerve receptor recoiled at once away from Heba while every single longing he had ever known turned solely to the destructing of this _thing_.

"You do, somewhere you remember," he tripped over the words sing-song, "and that's all I needed to know. Guess what tiny tot? I'm taking the humans down with me too. _Merry fucking Christmas_."

Yugi lost words. Something was flashing up inside him, something big and bad and pointy he didn't recognize consciously. His eyes burnt without his notice and pieces shuffled which told him they were royally screwed and Yami…

_Nononononononnono_-

"Bye precious." Heba sighed softly, a mother putting their child to sleep, raising his hand to brush. "Isn't really genocide till you scrape the pot for stragglers."

Contact.

Inhalation and-

The universe exploded into a kaleidoscope.

Yugi had endured a lot of pain in his life but not like this. When the witch rested the tip of his index finger on Yugi's forehead Hell was metaphorically condensed into a tiny sewing needle Heba was currently forcing through his frontal lobe till he broke. Yugi lost the coherency to know what was going on beyond _hurtshurtspainhurtsohmygodno !_ He couldn't even hear how loud he was screaming.

Yugi's vision patched, fading, between white sheer light and flashes of the laboratory.

He was dying. He couldn't think. Drowning. He couldn't think anything through the searing pain but his inner animal knew that _this_ was death. This was it.

The world rumbled suddenly once…

Twice…

He heard voices bicker in and out of focus.

"-is that!?" Heba spat.

_Painpainpainhurtsoh_-

"-0D1A has activated Sir!"

Yugi was going to puke when suddenly the pain snapped off like a sealed tap. Lurching in the arms of the guards Yugi's feet scrambled like broken eggs under him. Heba had twisted away to shout at his lackeys. The building, Yugi realized, was _literally_ shaking. An earthquake?

"That's not possible!" Heba was arguing hysterically. "Check it again!"

_Now! Go now! _Part of Yugi screamed and on years of sheer instinct he found enough strength to kick, push, and forcing at the guards who had left him for butter in their arms wrenched himself free.

He ran, bolting, vision smattering brokenly as he threw himself hard into the nearest door.

"_No!_" Heba screeched voice breaking two octaves. "After him you idiots! _Bring him back!_"

Yugi forced himself to move. His mind was in pieces unable to properly coordinate his loose limbs properly but Yugi knew he had seconds at best to make use of his lead. Something tiny inside him had broken free, a memory older than anything else he knew, and it told him unwaveringly that he had to put as much distance as possible between himself and Heba _right now_. It told him, loudly, that he would die quickly and agonizingly if he didn't run now. Nothing else mattered but this moment and this distance. His whole future hinged, he comprehended, on escape.

His head swam but he was naturally swift footed. Adrenaline, fear, and panic coupled to move him even as barely registered where he was or where he was going. Yugi stumbled, clipped a wall but with his inner child screaming he was too afraid to stop.

He wasn't aware if he'd lost them or if anyone or anything was still chasing him. He wanted to puke. Bile and blood where heavy in the back of his throat, after his synapses had been ripped inside, out but panic had flooded his mind with sirens that forced his body to move on an empty tank.

It was a miracle he didn't run into anyone because his mind had found a storehouse of new information he didn't know he had and was trying to process.

The fuck was that? The fuck was Heba? Yugi's knew he was crying, heart racing, mind racing back over things he couldn't quite place but acknowledged as memories. Heba was death. Heba was the end. Heba would eradicate him. Heba was silence. Yugi's entire life depended on never _ever_ coming face to face with that thing again. He felt so stupid for coming here, trapped in a nightmare, as round him the laboratory shook with the rumble of whatever earthquake had assaulted it conveniently.

One foot, another, move, move, _move! _

Yugi hit his stride. Starting to clear himself, blood tangy in his throat, blinking tears out of his vision he found stability in his footing. The world still shook but Yugi was healing back to his senses. He was getting himself ready to fight.

The hell was that shaking? He turned another corner, totally lost, and realized that whatever it was he was getting closer to it.

Going on instinct, all burners pounding, Yugi barrelled towards it. Whatever that rumbling was it had stopped Heba from obliterating him with that mind raping agony of his. He recognised that as good, very good, and as they said: _the enemy of my enemy is my friend_. Part of him prayed that whatever it was if it stopped Heba than maybe Yugi could use it. Maybe it was good. Maybe he could get out with it. He was too lost to find an exit any other way. So he would find the source of the chaos.

_Runrunrun!_

Yugi cleared another corner in the endless maze of a facility and found himself skidding into the railing of a gangway suspended over a glowing pool. It was a mech suspension tank. He was sure of it. It was one of the pools they stored and grew them in. He hit the rails, the suspended balcony shook, and eyes darting he could see the three surrounding walls covered in glass observation windows staring down towards the tank.

_BOOM_

The walkway trembled forcing Yugi to curl his arms round it or else be thrown from his his feet. Whatever they had in the tank: it was moving. It was _fighting_. How did that happen? How did a mech move without a pilot? Yugi's eyes spun. In the observation rooms he could spy there was a whole stack of panicking scientists and engineers shouting without sound over control panels. They seemed to utterly disregard him in their frantic haze.

This was it. This thing had made Heba stop. Heba who _was_ death.

Those memories which had been forced to light, awakened inside Yugi, pulled together at once. It made sense suddenly, pieces found their places, and Yugi understood. He knew this. He had always remembered waking in Gozaburo's laboratories as a small child with no origin. He had always had nightmares but now he somehow recalled _before_ Cyprus. The life he had before, the first eight years of his existence, spun out into clarity.

This thing in the tank suddenly seemed like a true escape. Not just a way to save himself from Heba, who was becoming increasingly terrifying the more Yugi remembered, but as a way to stop him.

Yugi pulled himself onto the rails without thinking. The fuck was he doing? Part of him reasoned but the rest was not working reasonably and pushing himself off the edge Yugi leapt from the balcony and _into the tank_.

He free fell for a moment and in the inhale it took to hit the surface of the fluid it seemed like a bad idea.

He crashed into the surface of the pool. He sank down, submerged under the surface in a natural rush, and the sirens, the rumbling, faded as his ears were flooded with liquid. Lips shut he struggle to keep oxygen as he blinked.

The water was bright, clear, flood lights glowed up from the distant bottom of the tank and in their glow he could see it.

_EX0D1A! _

His memory supplied it. Yugi kicked, made himself swim, and arms motioning felt everything roll off his water tight response suit. Whatever chemicals were in the pool tingled his skin, he fought forward through the thicker than water and reaching grasped as the back of the frame of the mech. Yugi blinked against the fluid, scrambling, lungs painfully tight and finding the hatch of the cockpit tried to find the way in.

The lights of the keypad flared to life as Yugi's fingers touched the metal. They flickered instantly to green, something tingled inside his head and he realized it was the EX0D1A intruding into his mind. It was the machine _recognizing him_. The hatch came open and squeezing in Yugi slumped into the cockpit as it began to fill with tank water.

He took a gasping breath, water sloshing in after him, heart throbbing, lungs pounding as he coughed up bile and automatically the hatch snapped shut after him.

The HD displays of the mech flared to life, unaffected by the water, and red popups from the AI started switching green without any intervention. Yugi heard a plug sucking sound and realized the water round him was draining.

This thing was _aware_.

Yugi didn't over think it. He didn't have time to. Fighting onto his feet, already exhausted, Yugi pushed himself, hefting, up into the handles and foot rests of the pilot's suspended seat. He fumbled to strap himself into the harness, panting harshly, as the mech continued to run through its systems moving itself to life. It responded to Yugi. Yugi could sense it on the surface of his mind clean, soft and safe. It was pure, electric and alien but _safesafesafe_. It was made to protect.

Yugi curled his fingers round the handles, started moving, let the machine lead and respond. He found the screens all round him, camera feed crystal clear, and panting let his body do what it did best: pilot.

The prompts flashed up, Yugi's eyes found them, read a language he didn't know he knew and as he blinked, thought his next movement, the command screens flashed to green without him ever having to touch the screen.

He moved in the harness.

They were getting out of this tank _now_.

* * *

(Track- Mozart "Greensleeves")

It was a royal cluster fuck.

In the chaos the only salvageable victories Yugi managed was getting all four of them out of the city under pursuit. The Knights had been half escaping in the building shaking quakes of the EX0D1A when Yugi had brought it blasting into the outer labs mech hangar. Only sheer dumb luck and timing had managed to bring them all back together at the last second.

After that the only thing they could do was flee.

Out of the city, they blazed over the farmland surrounding the city, and ran for hours towards the border of the Cyprus Empire. They were still a long way from Bohemia when, well after midnight, Yugi felt safe enough to stop.

Words didn't come easily in the first forty minutes of diluting panic. Everything about moving the EX0D1A was clunky and uncomfortable. Yugi couldn't quite reach all the controls and the build of the cockpit worked specifically against him. It was only because he was the best pilot on the continent he'd managed to work the unwieldy thing into crouch hiding in a wild patch of thick forest. They were in the middle of nowhere, well from the lights of the towns and the capital and the first port of action was for all of them to obscure their presence and try and assemble a fire in the darkness.

Yugi was exhausted, his bones ached from struggling with the mech, but he knew there was no use in complaining then as he helped Honda fumble to make a fire. Otogi raided their stolen mechs for some kind of ration supplies lest they go hungry while Jou, without binoculars or decent equipment, tried to figure out where they were and exactly how safe they were.

They were safe however, near a river and a quick shortcut back to Kul Elna which as an international city would shelter them. They were, however, without food or reasonable basic equipment. Aside from their combat suits, their stolen mechs and a few pathetic bits and pieces they had nothing. The mechs had ammunition but they had less than a hand gun between them. Yugi's wallet, his phone, his security cards were all in the MAG1C back in the woods by the outer laboratories. _Fuck_.

"What now?" Jou sagged towards the fire burying his face in his hands. "We're screwed…who are we supposed to…?" He lost his voice, scared.

"We take minute, we sleep," Yugi aligned himself spreading his palms before him, "and in the morning we go to Kul Elna. We can't do much else."

"We have to tell someone," Otogi murmured, "I mean…_what was that?"  
_  
"The Emperor," Honda posited, "he'd listen to you Yugi! If we got to the palace they wouldn't just shoot us."

"It won't matter," Yugi sighed. "I won't get to him. Heba will make sure I don't and even if I do we've stolen one of their super-weapons," he shrugged back to the EX0D1A, "right now we're probably in the best position to make it out of this."

"But…" Honda fumbled. "Jou's sister and all those people! We can't just…"

Yugi sighed, tried to relax and knew however tight his mouth was sewing his tongue back he needed to talk. Still in his mind it sounded stupid.

"Okay, listen," he prefaced gently. "I think I know what's going on but I don't know if you'll believe me."

They paused, glanced up, and all three of them shuffled towards him like pets in the darkness trying to come closer. Yugi didn't see scepticism just peace, not quite, more like… they looked to him, trusted him, would eat up anything he said and they were all of them scared. His big, tough, tagalongs were scared, tried and angry.

Yugi licked his lips absently. He had a plan, a last resort, because now he knew what Heba did there was only one resort. He just… it hurt to even think it all. The whole explosion of new information inside his mind was painful, migraine inducing, and it was so fast it was hard to speak.

Atem hadn't thought Yugi was a freak, even if there was a difference between the Knights and the man he loved or not, he'd just have to trust they wouldn't either.

"Heba," Yugi started, "isn't human. Whatever he is he's not human and right now the most important thing is stopping him at any means necessary or else a lot more people are going to die. Being imperial doesn't matter anymore."

Nothing, no challenge, no pipe up just a lot of big, dopey, eyes watching Yugi transfixed. It unnerved him but left him now choice except to speak.

"When… when you guys left, when he tried to kill me." Yugi sighed. "He invaded my mind and I think… I_ know_ that…."

Groaning softly Yugi drew his hands in and rested his face momentarily into his palm before raising it again. It all felt too fast. He needed to slow and rewind. Better start from the beginning.

"Okay," he took another breath, "look; when I was eight-ish I woke up in a laboratory."

Jou sat a little straighter but that aside none of them moved, none of them changed, nothing.

"Gozaburo raised me to be a weapon because I'm better at fighting than anything else. I can… I'm too smart sometimes, too skilled, it just… Piloting comes likes breathing." Still it was beside the point. "Before that though, before I woke up in that lab, I don't remember anything. I haven't been able to really ever since but when Heba touched me…I think it all came back. I got my memories when he scrabbled the shit out of my frontal lobe."

Otogi slumped stiffly, slowly, into his knees and actually came closer wide eyed and gaunt. There was no fear, no repulsion, to the point of almost no reaction as Yugi scanned them. They were scared and transfixed but tried they weren't looking away from him rather to him for answers.

For the first time, Yugi relaxed and it all came easier.

"It must've been a long, long, time ago. Humans didn't exist. Before that, before anything we know as history, I remember… there was a species, kind of like humans, called the Zion. They, _we,"_ he snorted though it sounded so alien to know he for certain wasn't human, "ruled the planet. There was only one nation, only one religion, and billions of these Ancients who lived under that authority. It's hazy, because I was little, but I can see it in my mind. I _know_ I was there."

"What happened?" Honda whispered.

They didn't even ask him to prove it.

Yugi lost his voice for a split second, amazed, and exhaled.

"The Ancients were advanced, super advanced, but all of a sudden one day things started changing." Yugi tried to explain as he placed the pieces inside himself. "I remember something drove people mad, the machines stopped working, everything stopped working, something built this _horrible_ giant mech, and it just started killing every living thing it could get its hands on. Millions died in seconds, it just mowed them down. It was called Heba. I don't know what exactly _it_ was, I was too little to really get it, but I know that guy back at the labs was the same thing."

Yugi could see the smoke, taste the ash, and almost shook as he swallowed.

"That _thing_," he spat, "it's inside the Emperor's mind and Jou's sister's mind and all those people somehow. It's using them, turning their brains to slush, to make little worker bees to build the Z0-RC and I'd bet anything that it's going to try all over again. It doesn't want anything. It just wants to annihilate. It's just _murder_. Men, women, children, animals, cities…"

"Is it…" Jou lost the right word. "The Z0-RC that's the same mech as the one that…? Your family?"

"I don't think so." Yugi shook his head. "I sort of remember a different name. Maybe Heba used a different machine. The Z0-RC might be new and he's trying to finish it with those poor fuckers. He knows who I am, he must've for a while, that's probably why he tried to kill me. He poisoned me too and I'd bet he sent those guys after us at Kul Elna. It's all been Heba. He wants us gone because I think…I _think _we can still stop him. Maybe…"

"Really?"

"Yeah," Yugi nodded hesitantly, "the EX0D1A is old. I remember it. The Empire didn't build it. They found it just like Gozaburo found me somewhere under the ocean asleep for however many million years. The Ancients of Zion built the EX0D1A to stop Heba. He killed them all, except me I guess, but they but they must've managed at least to hold him back with that. We've got it. I can pilot it. He knows that, that's why he wants us gone; because with it I think I've got a chance."

"Then we're set," Jou bolstered, "we ride that thing back to the Capital and you blow up the Z0-RC before Heba can finish it!"

"Yeah, great, aside from the fact he's got the whole Imperial army backing him," Otogi snapped. "Cause today went _so_ well."

"Yeah," Honda nodded, "if this Heba thing has the Emperor under some weird mind control voodoo like Yugi says then he controls the whole empire. We'd be way too outnumbered. No one will believe us back there."

"Besides," Yugi slumped, "I don't think I can use the EX0D1A properly anyway. Not yet. Something's wrong with it. It's not finished or something. It doesn't move right and it's hard to pilot. Until we can fix it we're fucked. Even if we do if the Z0-RC's new then…" He sighed.

"Maybe Kaiba?" Otogi offered and Yugi was struck but how, even aware of the danger, the Knight hadn't given up. "He's a brilliant engineer. He could fix it maybe?"

"You're right but we'd have to break him out," Yugi countered gently, "and Heba will double security now. He'll expect it. We go back we're going to the slaughter."

"Well there's always Bohemia?" Honda tried next just as softly trying to banter out some eureka moment from Yugi who must've seemed to need it. "They have engineers. If we told them all this they might help us. Even if they don't believe the mind control stuff if we tell them that Cyprus is going to use a giant super mech on them they'd_ have_ to listen."

"Point," Yugi nodded, "a very good point actually."

"We'll do that then." Jou nodded. "We'll go to Bohemia, find someone who'll listen and fix the mech."

"It's going to be dangerous."

"Like everything," Otogi sighed into his palms.

Yugi felt worse because they didn't seem to get it.

"You…" He struggled trying to grunt and be harsh. "You lot don't have to come with me. I don't care if you ditch me now. I can handle this. This is basically my fault anyway."

"What…?" Honda blinked up from his lap.

Otogi too seemed to stiffen.

"No way!" Jou was the first to cry out. "We couldn't! I'm definitely not going back to Cyprus but hiding ain't going to save Shizuka and there's no way I'm letting you out to the sharks by yourself. The Bohemians hate you! It'd be nuts!"

"Jou's right," Otogi nodded, "you can't do it alone. You'd be psychotic to try."

"Aren't I?" Yugi sassed but he was weak in the words. He didn't mean them.

They didn't want to leave him. He could hear it in what they _didn't_ say. He really felt it. Yugi knew doubtlessly that they were scared but they weren't trapped here. They wouldn't let him try and go it alone without them and get himself killed. They cared. They'd cared for a long time.

He…

_Wow_.

So that feeling in the labs wasn't just a crisis thing. This was family. He had one now and they'd stick with him for this. He wanted to ask, like he had with Atem, if they thought he was…if their opinions of him had changed but there was nothing different in Jou's stupid big eyes. These scraggly morons believed him without question, followed him without hesitancy and none of them seemed to think Yugi was a freak.

"Okay," Yugi consented, half nodding. "We'll do this together."

* * *

1 The Ancients of Zion: if you want more info please check out Yugi's dreams (the ones not involving possessed Yami) especially his drugged dream during _chapter fourteen_. If you can guess who/what the Paraxia-Pura is **I'll give you a snippet of next chapter**.

2 Why is Heba doing this and what does he want? I know, have been the two big questions. Here we have the answer. This isn't about power, domination or greed. This is about genocide, eradication and annihilation; Armageddon. To Heba every life form in existence ought to be wiped clean and so far? He's got a 99.9% success rate.

3 Also; so why did Heba promise Yami power/support/to make Yugi capable of having his children? He lied. He lied through his teeth with a smile because he just doesn't care. Yami's a rodent.

_**Extra Songs;  
**_"O Death" from Supernatural  
"Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" from Little Shop of Horrors  
"Are We All We Are" by Pink

_**Just for giggles**_**: **

"My Band" by D12- is basically how I picture the men of Cyprus (Yami, Yugi, the Knights, the Kaibas, Mahado and Heba) because frankly Yugi gets all the attention.

**NEXT TIME:** Yugi begins to understand the technical difficulties presented by the EX0D1A as well as the nature of Zion. Meanwhile Yami wakes to find his mistress missing and the discovery brings him into a direct confrontation against Heba who reveals a few dirty secrets. Will Prince charming snap out of the spell fogging his mind or…?


	27. Chapter 27

If you have someone you can cuddle for support during this chapter you might want to go get them. Also sorry this is a bit later than usual and a bit messier (up at midnight after festival and week at uni).

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

(Track- "Not like the Movies" Katy Perry)

In the Empire, that evening, as Yugi and his unit escaped things in palace erupted.

As Yami came up from under the slur of his mind, still adjusting to his fusion with Heba which was supposed to effectively make him a super being, things were hectic. He barely recalled the afternoon but he knew, as he flicked on the lights in his office warily and his stomach rumbled, that he had to apologise to Yugi.

The memory of shouting at the child was hazy but Yami knew, guiltily, that he had. The pilot, he thought as he came round for air, would be hurt somewhere in their rooms and Yami would have to grovel to kiss it better. He shouldn't have yelled.

The whole process of connecting his mind totally to Heba's, of sharing the AI's intelligence, was playing havoc on him as his body tried to catch up to the changes that were violent and unnatural. It was like surgery. Though Yami hoped that when the black outs, the hormones and the mood swings ceased it would all be for the better. He could protect Yugi better then and with Heba and the Z0-RC end the war quickly.

The first step out of his office however, suit rumpled, he'd been assaulted by a hysterical Mana and Mahado. They'd been bickering. Yami wanted, more than anything, just to go back to his bedroom and kiss up Yugi's spine till the pilot swooned for him. That wasn't going to happen however and it became very evident when Mahado caught sight of him.

"Majesty!" He grunted. "Motou's unit's gone rogue! They stole the EX0D1A from the outer labs. We need to send troops after them before they reach the border. If the Bohemians-"

"The outer labs?" Yami blinked sceptically.

He scanned his mental link with Heba but all was quiet. Heba was keeping it from him. There was no explanation, no flash of memories, nothing. Something was wrong and as Yami's gut twisted suspicion bloomed ready and waiting for the chance.

Mahado tried again, Yami raised his palm and dismissed the notion. In doing so Yami had to lean into the wall beside him, unable to quite stand as he wanted to. His legs were jelly. It might be from the mind meld or from the lack of food. Heba seemed to forget he needed to eat when the thing borrowed his body.

"No," he grunted stubbornly, "let Motou go. I suspect we have a bigger problem."

"But Majesty-"

"Don't question me," Yami ordered brazen but soft and Mahado faltered. "Go resecure the labs. Pull everyone on the project back. Tell communications to get me a line with the EX0D1A's comm. link. I want to speak with Motou ASAP."

They stared awed.

"_Now_ Mahado."

Yami felt clearer than he had in days. Heba's presence in his mind was very weak and he knew then that the entity was panicking focused on something else. No doubt Yugi's intrusion to the labs had caused Heba to startle. His two little monsters weren't supposed to cross lines. Suggestions started to occur to Yami, hypothesises, proceeding from the two facts he had that: Yugi had gone to the labs for some reason and now Yugi was running away.

"Yes Majesty…" Mahado mumbled, shoulders shrinking, Mana turning her nose to her shoes beside him looking gaunt. "What will you…?"

"I'll be in the throne room." Yami answered hobbling.

Heba had done something or perhaps Yugi had done something more accurately. Yugi had changed the game somehow. Yami knew, better than he knew how to breathe right now, that the child wouldn't betray him. He didn't even consider it. Which meant that if Yugi was running from him then his boy had caught his witch red handed with something. Meanwhile Heba's frantic hum of thoughts just out of Yami's reach did nothing to counter that idea.

Yami had had suspicions since the beginning that, a little wild, the AI might spiral one way or another. Heba's was a young creation, lacked restraint, so Yami had been watching Heba like a hawk. Trying to at least…

He trusted the creature, the entity, but he was always aware that Heba was artificial, non-human, and busy. There were things Yami could let slide, he was permissive, but it seemed today as if something had pushed too far out of skew. Yugi didn't scare easy. This had always been his limit, his line in the sand; Yugi. Without proof Yami wouldn't throw off his precious witch queen, God no, but there had always been a line. He would believe Heba over anyone _except_ Yugi.

If Yugi was running Heba had done something…

If that was the case then Yami had to get his big boots on and pull the young, wild, creature back a notch. It was a rare occasion to flex his control. Heh, it made him think actually; his baby witch, his boy pilot, God he was half a father already, what a hassle…

Yami's head spun if he walked too fast, his thoughts sort of jumbled clumsily, and he tried to orientate them but was unable to really think far ahead or feel the real weight of the idea that Yugi had turned coat. His effortless intelligence had been reduced to dot points on a to-do list he didn't have the strength to think outside of.

He held the wall, arm out just brushing the plaster, as he took to a groggy stroll. He was exhausted, he couldn't feel, couldn't think but…

Blinking up the gently out of focus hall he took a deep breath.

_Come on Sennen, wakey wakey, something's up_.

* * *

(Track- "Gaia (Totem)" by Faun)

The Knights only slept four or so hours till dawn and in weakened shambling in the first rays Yugi failed miserably to find them anything edible in the wilderness. Cold and hungry they'd have to set out starving and waterless. The men didn't complain and for that Yugi was grateful.

Yami, he knew, was in the Palace _dying_ and with every second Heba lived he was screwed. Infected knowingly? Yugi shuddered at the idea and exhausted tried to haul himself back into the EX0D1A despite the ache in his thighs. His stomach was thick with bile. Yami was… everything about those kisses was slipping away between his fingers with every second it took to make it to Atem. Atem would help Yugi, he had promised, he would catch Yugi now but what if he wasn't fast enough? Did Yami know? How lost was he? Who had Yugi been sleeping with? For how long?

His throat burned, his heart didn't seem to want to beat, and he just had to hope Yami was struggling too but that wasn't good enough for him.

Getting into the EX0D1A had been thoughtless yesterday but this morning Yugi struggled. The harness made no sense, there were too many handles and the scope of the cockpit was too big for a mech not that much bigger than a normal one. The control screens had flipped to English for a moment, synchronised with Yugi's brain, but it didn't help.

He pulled the straps apart and tried to decipher it.

He felt stupid. Yugi had sat in a million mechs and always been able to figure out the _fucking seatbelts_. He grunted low through his nostrils and frustrated realized that it wasn't possible for someone normal to sit comfortably in this thing and be able to reach everything. Not even Jou's gangly arms could reach from one side to another he was sure. Some perfect super machine.

The EX0D1A was primal but sentient and seemed to pulse at the rim of his mind till with that jolt came something which, petting, tried to soothe Yugi. It wanted him to be calm, thought he should be, but like some dog butting his snout into Yugi's side didn't seem to know how to accomplish that other than to suggest everything was fine.

Yugi slumped. Otogi called again on the radio.

"You almost ready to go Boss?"

"Yeah," he cawed back embarrassed and bitter, "just a sec. This thing's retarded."

_Come on Motou_, he ordered, _get it together_.

There was no way he could save Yami unless he figured this thing out.

He counted the pedals and handles again, tried to align the harness and-

"_Fuck._"

It came out so hard it was basically a sneeze.

"You okay Yugi?" Jou's voice rumbled cautiously over their signal.

"Yeah," he stumbled over the word, "I…"

_Damn it_.

"Just give me another fifteen."

The EX0D1A switched off the comm. without Yugi having to press a button.

Two harnesses, two sets of pedals, two sets of handles. This thing, this _stupid_ thing, wasn't broken or incomplete. It needed two pilots. Two skilled pilots who were Zion, Ancients, that could sync their minds with the thing like Yugi. Two people who _didn't fucking exist_.

_Why? Why did they leave me alone? What kind of short stick was that?_

It flittered up but Yugi suppressed it at a cringe because the thought stung. He slapped the console, frustrated, he didn't have time for this. His mother, she was important, one of the most important people of the Zion: the Paraxia-Pura (what did that even mean?). She had a part in making Heba, in making the EX0D1A too, she… Yugi had this sense that she was supposed to leave this to protect him. She had found a way for him to survive when they all died out and now she'd failed him…?

Yugi slipped into one of the restraints of the EX0D1A and in a sick progression of moments let himself not be calm. His hands held his face, ran through his hair, grasped his temples and everything was not okay. He was not okay.

Yami was in danger. Heba, whatever exactly Heba was, was inside him _eating his brain_ and if Yugi didn't stop it, somehow, with a super machine that only half worked everyone was going to die.

At the same time his whole world had flipped. Yugi wasn't human anymore. The EX0D1A purred at the back of his consciousness not really aware like a human, more like a beast, but clean and pure it recognized what Yugi was and it was protective. This machine had been made by Yugi's species, Yugi's bloodline, to protect him and ensure the survival of what was left of a race that didn't even have any footprints left to find.

His whole life he'd had the niggling realization that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't human. He knew he wasn't like everyone else. It factored into his apathy, his hatred, of other people but even if he thought he was better sometimes he didn't know exactly how different he was on a chromosomal level. Sometimes he wasn't sure how different he wanted to be. He didn't want to be a thing, constructed and artificial like a work of art or a handgun in a production line. He didn't want to think Gozaburo could make another him some day, replace him, and sweep him away because de facto Yugi had no _human_ rights.

He'd never pictured this though. The lone, desperately lonely, survivor of an obliterated species… it made his hands look different under his eyes as he thought about it but all at once a thousand tiny things made sense.

When Yugi was tiny, when he woke in The Underground, they'd all been so fascinated by him. Nothing made sense to him, least of all the language and that hatred of his for human food. Even then there'd been a million tests: for allergies, immunities, bacteria, viruses… Yugi's whole genetic structure was different. His brain was different. Things went fast and machines like this thing were practically his home.

Of course Gozaburo had never killed him and never replaced him. He couldn't. He didn't know how but then he'd pretended so for the upper hand. Of course, it was so startlingly apparent Yugi was amazed he hadn't thought of it.

That sense of not understanding relationships, cultural norms, of not seeing or feeling the same way was culture shock, time shock, from waking on what was to Yugi essentially an alien planet.

He clenched his fingers and extended them.

The EX0D1A hummed encouraging his brain to bring up details from so long ago that Yugi had repressed them. Wait… repressed, regression… Right, when he woke up in the lab he was terrified. He cried. He screamed. He was convinced he would die all because he remembered Heba and the destruction of his whole universe round him. They'd said it was PTSD; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which it was and they'd tried to therapeutically repress it to stabilize him.

The memories were there though now. Yugi was the last of what, he fuzzily remembered as, an amazing species. The Ancients of Zion had one government for the entire planet and at the centre of it, though he hardly understood the specifics, had been his mother. There'd been two of them; the Pharaoh and the Paraxia-Pura. They had total authority in everything for some reason. They were sole equals. She was Praxia-Pura, the last one, and even if Yugi didn't know what the word meant she had been one. He had had a mother once who _loved_ him and had died_ fighting_ for his future.

She had ensured his survival. She had piloted this thing once, Yugi was sure of it, logically she and the Pharaoh were the only options if this thing needed two people. They had piloted the EX0D1A and he had been locked up in a pod somewhere, instead of however many others were left, so that he had a chance to survive and dream of something better somewhere peaceful long after his mother was dead. The planet couldn't have been liveable immediately after Heba. The other survivors had probably starved out.

That was why he was so vicious, wasn't it? That tiny, childish, part of him had never stopped being terrified that one day Heba would come back. That original soul of Yugi knew only survival and trauma so he had to be strong to fight and live. Was that why he was scared to ever stop fighting and training?

That too had to be why he was so good with mechs he sensed. The Zion were engrained with religious philosophy and mechanically engineering feats beyond the human race. He'd inherited that. That was why his response reports with the machines was so impossibly high, why he thought so fast in the pilot's seat, he was just naturally adept at it.

Fat lot of good it would do him though.

Yugi slumped.

The EX0D1A needed two pilots. Two pilots of Ancient skill at that and if Yugi was the last then Yami…

The EX0D1A nudged him, so gentle, so un-invasive like mother's milk, like her hand in his hair, and prompted him with a tiny tug. Suddenly he found himself glancing to the second harness beside him.

Wait…why would they design the EX0D1A to have two pilots?

Logically it made sense to rig it for one so the last man standing could get retribution for the species if Heba won. It made sense to build a machine that would ensure that at least one of them suriv-

Wait.

It clicked then. Two pilots, female and male, Adam and Eve, regeneration, continuing the species, repopulation, life after Heba… They'd built it for two pilots to make sure two Ancients survived to procreate the species afresh. This wasn't just the end game weapon this was intended as a time capsule for a new Eden after the apocalypse!

_Shit_.

But…A detail occurred to Yugi, something that made him turn a little, jumping out in such a way that his body seemed even more foreign and mysterious than it had a second ago. He shook his head, biology would have to wait, he couldn't think about that right now he…Oh _fuck_…

_Okay, breathe, focus_; they'd built the EX0D1A for two pilots. He took a gulp of air.

That meant…

If Gozaburo had found him under the sea then there had to be another one. There had to be more somewhere. It was a long shot but they wouldn't have stored the EX0D1A unless they were saving it for Yugi and someone else, possibly multiple someone else's.

It was a long shot. Chances were if anyone else like Yugi survived they might still be at the bottom of the ocean, or long dead in the last ten thousand years of human history, or somewhere completely random….

He was looking for a needle in a haystack with a countdown to D-Day.

Just Yugi's fucking luck.

His fist slammed into the side panel hard enough just to sting and hissing he tried again. _Come on_. There had to be a way to fix this. If there was a second, or a third, or even a fourth Ancient out there somewhere surely Yugi could find them somehow.

The EX0D1A rumbled.

Yugi blinked, felt it at his temples lapping, and stilled as the beast gave a little harmonic hum round him. Did it know…?

It twinkled again.

"You know," Yugi whispered, and could feel it surge round him like a tide. "You can show me?"

A purr.

"Show me."

* * *

(Track- "Transient Apple Salesgirl" by Gumi)

Yugi must've been tiny. If the memory had been allowed to sit he probably wouldn't have remembered it so clearly but Heba had unlocked everything inside him and the EX0D1A somehow fostered it to fluency. When Yugi was inside the mech its presence crystallized what he could recall from his childhood all those thousands of years ago before being put in cryogenic suspension.

He softened in the harness and letting the EX0D1A prod his consciousness overturned the little gem flashing up inside him.

He was knobby kneed maybe five…? He wasn't sure. It was a time in his life when he'd been too hazy to recall ages or dates either way. He remembered nestling into the plush of what was, horribly, his mother's shoulder. He remembered her smell, it distracted him, made him hiss close to stinging eyes till suppressing it he could push through the meat of the flashback. He had been in her arms, head on her bosom, little legs dangling as he glanced down contemptuously to the subject of the whole affair.

They'd been at something, some kind of enormous and magnificent festival. Yugi remembered the carnival smells and the vibrant colours that were rich everywhere. He was tired by the afternoon, cranky, and he had slumped against his mother while his parent (distinctly, purposefully, singular) conversed with other adults.

"Sacred greetings!" The little boy called shrilly up to him, all bounce and enthusiasm. He was older than Yugi but only by a fraction. All buck teeth and gummy gaps when he smiled.

Yugi huffed, tired and unresponsive, pouting down in disinterest as the little boy tried to garner his attention. His mother chuckled thickly, bounced him and rocked him.

"Say hello," she prompted with that low, coarse, voice.

"Hello," Yugi parroted glumly.

"Aw," the adult man grinned by the boy, laughing boisterously. "Poor _Mic_."

"Give him a few years," his mother twinkled through a snort, "then he'll care. Not interested in fiancés yet are we _button masher?_"

"No I suspect not," the man answered, "oh well. I'll see you soon I trust Yura?"

"Don't you always Pharaoh?"

"I should be so lucky."

They chattered. Yugi remembered somehow that his normally intimidating mother was very calm, very casual, with the man. He recalled her as very proper, always spotless, a pagan idol, an image of dolled perfection for the masses of somewhere. She had been perfect, formal, efficient, magical… People looked to her for some reason, something religious that they still thought was important, but Yugi had been too small to have been taught the specifics of her role or his as heir.

The word '_fiancé_' stuck out. The nicknames were strange but appropriate. Yugi vaguely remembered reasoning for them. He recalled fractions of his mother culture from all those millennia ago. Worse however, clearer than anything, as he fought through the details was the little boy's bright face.

That face caught, hooked.

It was chubbier than Yugi had ever seen it, hung with baby fat, and paler too but those eyes and that smile were so distinct…

_Atem Horakhty._

* * *

(Track- New Moon Full Soundtrack 11.59-27.24)

"Whatever happens," Yami prefaced, straightening his blazer. "You are not to open these doors and you are not to let anyone in. Do you understand me?"

"_Yes Sir!_" The guards chorused, cocking their rifles.

Regardless of what had happened, whatever Yugi had stolen or however many calls he refused to answer, hell even if the Knights did have the EX0D1A, it didn't matter. Yami couldn't and wouldn't send troops after them. Not after Yugi had loosed himself, some bat out of hell, after a visit to the outer laboratories. No, Yami trusted Yugi's intentions but…

"Heba," he ordered turning to the empty expanse of the throne room, the cathedral style ministerial meeting place, with its huge slender windows stretching to the ceiling exposing the night sky. "Show yourself."

The throne creaked.

One second it was empty and then the next, in a shimmer that was as abrupt as a frequency cutting and sizzling back, Heba was reclining across _his_ throne.

"You had best send troops after Motou," the witch informed seriously. "He's betrayed you."

"I don't believe that." Yami answered dazedly. His temples ached from the proximity of the hallucination. Heba's mind pushing against his made the world fuzzy all over. "What really happened?"

"Really happened?" Heba tilted his head, nails splayed over his knees as if he couldn't contemplate the words. "That slut broke into my labs and stole one our weapons and now he's barrelling away with it."

"Yugi wouldn't do that without a reason."

"Well then," the witch scoffed, "your brat is very passionate about nothing."

"Heba, what did you do?" Yami ordered again like a father. He'd so tried to rail this thing in the right direction.

"Nothing but try to stop_ him_," he answered sharp and steady. "He's betrayed us."

"You can lie to me all you like," the Emperor loosened his shoulders, "but I won't believe that. I would believe a lot of things from you Heba but I will not believe that my boy has run off like this without a reason. You did something, I'm sure, you scared him somehow or he caught you doing something you shouldn't be."

"What if he didn't?" Heba spat rocking forward in the throne stubbornly. Where did that jewellery come from? "I can _show_ you what happened."

"Even if he did it doesn't change anything," Yami pursed carefully, "even if Yugi _has_…turned coat," the words stung, "this is over. If you did something to him you're in trouble and if he's betrayed me then I don't care anymore. I can't do this, it's not worth it, without Yugi."

The entire contract of letting Heba exist, letting the AI run rampant as bizarre and alien as it was, was something Yami had only ever allowed to this extent for greedy self-satisfaction. Heba protected Yugi, made capable a future no one else could offer, and it was for that reason alone that Yami tried to harness Gozaburo's last fatal construction. He let this strange, powerful, sentient thing commune with him to keep them safe and profitable. Emperor or not if Yugi was gone what did Yami have? What else was worth enduring these brain splitting fucking migraines? The inability to keep down food or sleep? If he couldn't have children with Yugi, if this thing scared Yugi too much or it was dangerous then why bother?

Either Heba had hurt the only living thing that mattered to him anymore, that wasn't replaceable like so many of the others Yami had written off, or Yugi had just given up on him. Without him Yami didn't care anymore. Hell '_suicidal_' wasn't the right word exactly but it didn't seem far off and Yami was tired.

It occurred to Yami, darkly, that once he was finished here with Heba he'd track down Yugi to settle this fiasco and if the boy didn't want him then he'd just have to resort to a tower for the pilot.

"This is over," Yami straightened in his back to stand proud if solemn, "I'm sorry Heba but this is the last straw I can stomach. I'll reappropriate the laboratories. I'm turning you into something else. It's over. We're not working like this anymore."

It was a cruel threat but it was met with momentary silence.

"You believe Motou?" Heba whispered matching Yami's weak gaze almost blankly.

"More than you," he decided. "There's no way Yugi would leave like this. Not after everything he's put up with. I don't know what you did but this is over."

"Over?" Heba blinked slowly turning his chin ever so slightly to Yami like a snake in a basket as the word came up again. This time he seemed to really hear it. "Excuse me?"

"You've gotten too messy," Yami grunted impatiently. He didn't like this faulted way Heba failed to hear or react like the creature was broken. "I've been willing to put up with your moods, with your glitches, with all sorts of things I shouldn't have but now I'm sick of it. I'm too tired for this shit. This is over."

_"Oh?"_

"I'll shut down everything." He repeated to make himself feel stronger in the statement trying to sound very clear. He was so sick of this ringing in his ears, so queasy that he was becoming abrupt. "I'll dismantle the Z0-RC or I'll finish it some other way. Whether I end the war or not I don't care. As for you; you're done, you're going back into your box till I can be bothered to look at this project again, and I'm getting Yugi back. Right now, I don't want your power. You're queer at the best of times, hazardous at the worst. I'm turning you _off_."

There was the threat.

The silence stretched.

Heba's shoulders fell slowly, hands unfurling out of his lap and twisting ever so gracefully in the throne he took the rests underhand to push straight to his feet at the top of the dais.

_Beg you witch_.

In a weird, fucked up way, Yami wanted to hear it from those lips. His tarries with this thing, with this technology, had been unsatisfying thus far and he wanted the closure of cries for mercy. Somehow he felt if he could make Heba weaker he would feel strong enough to leave, abandon, the wraith and rule alone without his help. He felt like if he dropped Heba, dropped Yugi, and was forced to then maybe he could manage on his own. Besides this thing that wasn't really a person.

Heba meet his eyes dead on, really seemed to see Yami for perhaps the first time through the aquarium glass, and smiled.

"Oh Fleshling," he twinkled softly, "you can't turn me_ off_."

Something in the air changed, something cleared; _snapped_.

"The entire world you see around you is my creation." Heba's light spread to his eyes, "before your species was even a twinkle in the celestial eye _I_ split the continents. _I_ turned the land to molten volcanic tar. _I_ eradicated all traces of life."

"_What…?_" Yami frowned bemusedly at the sudden biblical crassness. "What are you talking about? Gozaburo built you with the Z0-RC to be it's AI. _You_ told me that. You're just a program that's out grown its parameters."

Yami hadn't wanted to believe even that was possible for a long time. He had thought Heba was some con artist playing games because an AI capable of creating an allusion so human was unnerving.

Apparently Yami had been right to question it.

"Hmm," the machine's fake face snorted, rolling his eyes. He was half sing song before languidly he confessed. "You know what sweetie? Just cause I like you, just because we've had _so_ much fun together, I'll tell you the truth. You want to know who made me?"

It was like it was a bedtime story to him.

"I was created as by the ancients who ruled and infested this planet _four million years_ before you. They were the most advanced species in the entire history of this rock," he scoffed.

"Upon reaching the Golden Age they created me to manage their affairs so they could focus on religion, on superstition and_ nonsense_." He hissed but it fell into sighing laughter, like he'd remember a child tripping over their own feet.

"You know my prime objective was worded, exactly, as to '_Guard and Govern the Worthy_' or '_Heltric un Ethyre Ba Alster_' as we used to say. That's what they considered themselves- worthy. Though…" He purred whispering slowly over the savoured syllables, "upon _inspection_ of their species, through their entire wealth of cultural information and their monitoring devices, I discovered not a single member of their entire species was worthy of my protection."

Heba smiled and then, conspiratorial, dropped the bombshell in a whisper:

"So I eradicated them."

His lips broke to expose the tiniest glimpse of teeth.

Oh God, Yami realized, he'd been _played_.

The witch wasn't done yet.

"Radio waves, radiation, worldwide electronic networks… It only took me weeks to infest every piece of equipment on the _globe_. Hell, with a little pulse to the brain and a little radioactivity to help the signal I found I could even infect their minds, even create the illusion of physicality but," he shrugged, "I suppose you of all people already know _that_ Yami."

Heba folded his forearms lightly, rubbing his arms distantly, amused into grey shades of nostalgia.

"Eventually I decided it wasn't fast enough. Not the famine or the nuclear fallout or the mechs. So I built myself my first brand spanking new body. It was called the _Kriegsmaschine, _the War Machine," he lilted lovingly over the dialect that came so easily. "Mind you they eventually built something to come back at me with."

"The Exodia," he snorted, half smirking. "A bad approximation of me really but more cautious, ball-less, it's only saving grace was that it was productive. It caused my body so much damage in the struggle I was forced to hibernate."

"It didn't matter in the end not really. By the time I took my nap the playpen was gone. There were less than fifty of them languishing in an inhospitable wasteland dying and helpless. Out of three billion ancients I left a spluttering set of less than fifty."

He paused for a moment but then, horribly, seemed to focus back on Yami rather than inside his own memory.

"So imagine my surprise when I awoke, all these millenniums later, to discover an entirely new species set up in their place: the human race." He almost leered enthusiastically. "My latest investigation has discovered that unfortunately _you_ are even _less_ worthy of survival than your predecessors. _You're roaches_."

He hissed over it, bending in a little, hunching almost till even smaller he was somehow all sharp, all vicious, all amazingly splendid and wicked.

"So you will be exterminated like the plague you are and I will continue to do so until this planet expresses a life form worth more than my distinct, apathetic, ire. That's all I want, that's all I've ever wanted, to destroy _everything_."

Yami knew that his fingers were quaking against his thigh but it surprised him.

"You can't." It was dumb but Yami's sluggish mind was too crippled for this. He couldn't… how did he…?

"Oh, Baby," Heba purred softly. "I'm just warming up and there's not a _damn thing_ you can do to stop me."

"Yugi has the EX0D1A," Yami croaked dryly unable to move.

"Hmm," Heba confessed to with a shrug, "maybe but I'm prepared for it this time. Besides, sweetling, he's not coming to save _you_. He's run off to play house with Atem Horakhty."

"No." Yami spat childishly. "He hasn't."

"He's one of them, you know," Heba gestured nearly sympathetically in mocking, "an Ancient of Zion. He lied to you about the file. You know that. You're not _that_ stupid. Yugi survived to be Gozaburo's play thing. I almost wouldn't have found out for sure it was him if it wasn't for Horakhty. See," Heba laughed snorting like it was good gossip, "they got _frisky-_"

"He _raped_ him." Yami insisted stubbornly.

"Pftt," Heba laughed, "yeah, sure. You know what that did sweetheart? It woke his whole little system up. His whole dormant reproductive tract- _filthy_ thing- sent him into belated puberty because Atem Horakhty- who would guess!- is one of _them_ too."

"Motou wasn't bleeding because he fought Baby. Your _whore_ was bleeding because he's fertile now. So he can have little Bohemian babies with the other arcane _filth eater_. They smelt each other. A right pair of pretty little Lastlings."

No- They…Yugi…Yami felt himself pale. Internal bleeding with no source, pain, it…It was_ menstrual_ blood. So Yugi's smell…not human, the lies and…Yami's shoulders fell. Everything he was certain of cracked.

"Ahuh," Heba lapped up the recognition on his face, "yeah. That's right. Now they're copulating across the border no doubt and it's just you and me. So, tell me Sennen, who's going to save you? Before I rip little baby Motou to pieces?"

This was it.

He was alone.

Cold, terror, pain….

Yami glanced over him. Heba was so tiny. Slim, young and _slimy_. He'd strung Yami and now he wanted to hang him.

It wasn't going to happen. No. He was going to kill Horakhty himself. He splintered into his standard rage as the only thing Yami had left to draw on. Goddamn it this was his throne, his home, his family and fuck it- now or never- Yami Sennen was getting a _fucking_ back bone.

"You can't have me." He swore. "You're just a machine. Now get the_ fuck_ out of my head."

A pause, Heba faltered, leant back…

And_ laughed_.

He curled in, bubbling through that sweet approximation of Yugi's voice that cracked at odd angles to go deeper and higher from human to non in such blinks it was almost unnoticeable yet so horribly eerie.

"Oh you dumb, hairless, ape!"

It was so slow, so lilted and sighing Heba uncurled back up utterly at peace.

"Honeypot," he teased sickeningly, sneering. "You might not comprehend this but you don't _have_ a mind without me anymore. This shape, his shape, his voice… it's let me into your mind through a thousand backdoor thoughts. You're always thinking about him and, vice-versa,_ me_. It's the same signal to your head."

That…

Oh… Oh God…

"That's why you look like Yugi…"

"Bingo!" Hebe flung his arms open. He darkened then, slow and thick. "Though, kiddo," he spat, "you only exist anymore because_ I tell you to_. You're pathetic little brain is so fucked up, so broken, it doesn't know how to breathe without me telling it to. You're nothing without me anymore. The second I leave you'll be a _vegetable_."

Yami's wrists trembled.

No.

No.

"Yes," Heba sung, grinning.

Oh shit.

"Ahuh," he snapped. "I can see _everything _now, permission or not, and guess what? I'm not done with you yet."

"What…?"

Dry, softly, Heba crooned:

"I'm going to break you _open_."

Yami backed up, just a step, and…

Instinct flared. Panic exploded. _Run_.

Heba grinned.

Yami pivoted, less than a hundred feet between him and the door to the throne room. It didn't matter if no one else could see Heba. If he could just-

His legs yanked themselves out from under him.

He hit the floor hard.

"W-wha…?"

He couldn't stop shaking. Yami pushed up, trying to find himself, and fast stumbled back onto his feet heart hammering. He stood straight, still, and-

His knees jerk out like a poltergeist had wrenched them.

He slammed back into the floor.

_Nononononono-_

Nothing would move, nothing would twitch, not a toe, not a finger, not an eyelid would move even as he trembled. No synapse reached, no limb cared.

Soft, clipped, heels clacked on the tiles but even then Yami knew he only heard them because Heba_ told_ him to.

The boots came into view by his nose and even then he couldn't raise his head. He couldn't…he couldn't even…

_Nonono_-

Heba knelt. His fingertips touched the tiles before Yami extended like spiders and curling his knees under himself Heba slithered down into his field of vision _beaming_.

"Shall we?"

* * *

So recapping:

1 Atem's an Ancient of Zion + EX0D1A needs two pilots + Yugi's basically a chick  
2 Heba is a super AI who uses electricity, radio waves, impulses, radioactivity (remember there are supremely high levels of that let loose on the outer labs) to fuck with people's brains. He takes them over and, interestingly, it's your brain and its sensors which tell you what you see, feel, and hear. So if Heba tells you he's real then he is.  
3 "To Guard and Govern the Worthy" which was the AI's prime objective translates to '_Heltric un Ethyre Ba Alster_' = H E B A. Yep, that's where it comes from.  
4 Heba wasn't built for the Z0-RC, _Kriegsmaschine _or any other mech. He builds them for himself.  
5 Heba can appear however he wants to. He chooses to look like Yugi to Yami because of how often Yami thinks of Yugi. If Heba looks similar it creates a kind of subliminal message effect letting Heba infect his mind more thoroughly~

**Next Time**: Atem gets warning that the world as he knows it is about to change, Heba's on the war march, President Dartz has the pleasure of meeting Yugi Motou and is this where we say goodbye to Yami…?

_**Four chapters left!**_


	28. Chapter 28

You know shit is getting real when Atem returns to the picture~

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

(Track- Judah Reprise 'After the Sirens')

It was almost weird for Atem to be in civilian garb under the sun. He'd spent so long now in uniforms, lived in his combat suit, that it was hard reaccustom himself to cotton. Though, truth be told, he'd spent so much of his life basically naked in a field, falling in the mud clumsily, that clothes in general restrictive or not were alien.

Cities too, like the Republican capital he was currently strolling through, were a little foreign to him. He'd take beaches, empty cross patches of field work, and concrete military bases because catching sight of himself, taller than he had been at the start of the year, in the glass of the shop fronts startled him. Yugi's scar, over his eye, had changed the whole nature of his face.

His Knights, Bakura, Malik and Odion were off enjoying the scenery themselves. Bakura was doubtlessly up to trouble in the pool houses because he would've found one Atem was certain with a grin. As for the Ishtars Malik had never really been outside Siege City so a chance to see the capital, to go tourist, was something childishly amusing for the eighteen year old. Atem thought it would do him some good to have fun and not be so serious for a while. He on the other hand was wandering aimlessly trying to psyche himself up for his eventual meeting with the president.

He hoped, in a couple more days, to talk to Dartz about the future of the military, the Bohemian Knights, some propaganda probably but really Atem wanted to talk about the masked gunmen who'd tried to kill both he and Yugi. An international or cross border group targeting both sides was dangerous.

Atem paused by a bench, stretching his arms over his head to work out the kink in his neck but when his limbs slapped back down he didn't feel any better. It had only been the day before yesterday that he had Yugi asleep beside him. If he closed his eyes he could feel bare toes kicking his calves and smell the wilds that seemed tattooed in Yugi's skin. He missed him already. It was almost a burn. Romantic or not it stung.

When Atem Horakhty fell he fell _hard_.

His lips pursed because the second Yugi had kissed him all that internal bickering had come tumbling down like a pile of technicolour blocks. He was now totally legitimized in wanting to protect Yugi Motou. Atem sighed, couldn't seem to find the impulse to keep moving forward down the street. Ironically forward was the only place he had to go in his life at the moment if he wanted to fix all this. God it… it literally _hurt_ how tight his heart clenched. Firecracker… Atem swallowed, realized his shoulders were bunched and dropped them.

His phone buzzed violently in his pocket, sizzling on his hip, and Atem startled.

He didn't recognize the caller ID or the phone couldn't give him one but thumb as dopey as the rest of him, or alternatively as fearless, Atem pressed the call button and brought it to his hear.

"Hello?"

"_Finally!_" Yugi huffed in frustration. "It took four tries to remember the fucking number."

"Firecracker?" Atem stiffened before his smile burst through. _Love_.

"Heh, hey," the Imperial rasped quietly, he seemed to soften an octave. Safety was between them.

"You okay?" He supposed. "Where are you?"

"I'm getting close to the border," Yugi answered, "listen I don't have long. I'm on a payphone. Where are you?"

"In the Capital, why? Do you need me?" Atem would've run, abandoned, his post for twenty-four hours of shore leave to go pick up Yugi.

"Yeah and I need you to stay right there." The Imperial answered curtly. "I need you to get me a meeting with the President ASAP."

"_What?_ Why?" Atem knew suddenly something had come unlaced and their plans were rushing forward.

"I stole equipment from Sennen and unless I can talk to Dartz Bohemia's about to get ass raped by a monster. I need to see him and I need _you_ to be there when I get there. We clear?"

"Sure," the hero fumbled, "I've got a meeting with him tomorrow afternoon actually. Do you think…?"

"I'll be there," Yugi decided plainly and by the sounds of things he would pilot all night to arrive on schedule if he needed to. "Tell him to expect a couple of mechs in the city. I'm not coming in without this thing."

"Okay, I'll try," he promised. "Yugi, are you okay?"

"No," he confessed brazenly, still holding the strength in his syllables. "I'm scared."

Atem swallowed.

"I'll be here." He swore.

"Love you," Yugi sighed softly. As if it might be the last time.

"I love you too," he emphasised. "We'll be okay."

"I hope so."

Atem wanted to comfort him but suddenly Yugi was gone and he was left with a dry dial tone thrumming dully back at him. Atem tightened the tendons in the small of his back. Today had just gotten very messy but if it was necessary for Yugi he'd move heaven and earth to get them back into the same room.

Something mega-bad had happened.

He just hoped Sennen was okay as well wherever he was…

* * *

(Track- Alice the Madness Returns 'Outro Extended')

The guards either couldn't hear anything inside the throne room or had taken Yami's orders very literally. Chances were they were scared too.

"Get out…" He pleaded.

"Oh stop whining," Heba sighed. There was such lazy impatience, such cold irritation, one leg over the other in the throne resting his temple into the points of his fingers as he watched the sun Yami hardly recognized him.

"_Stop_…_Please…_"

"Too late for that meat-bag," he dismissed, eyes never bothering to waver form the window. "You made your bed and you'll sleep in it. It's called a reaping. Accustom yourself to."

"Please," he curled in, "_pleasepleaseplease_…"

"That," Heba gestured, "that brain splitting agony searing through you? Yes, sweet thing, that's you breaking. Your mind's putty, that pain is just the last stitch coming open and then…Hmm…then I'll need to find a new meal to dig my teeth into. _Again_. It's a shame really."

"_Stop!_"

"It'll stop hurting," he shrugged, "you'll cease to be. Then there's blackness and silence; death. It's nice, peaceful, you won't even know you're gone- _Oh stop crying!_"

Sighing Heba leant forward, reasserting himself in the throne as he shuffled.

"You humans," he threw his head back hissing, "you're all the same, so insufferable when you reach the edge… I really expected better of you Sennen, little Emperor, and yet… You're just going to cry for him aren't you? _Aren't you?_ Weakling."

"Yugi…"

"There we go." Heba snorted fingers parting round his eye, nails straying. "There it is. _Pathetic_."

"Oh god…" Yami mumbled, inhaling brokenly. "Yugi…"

"He'll die too if it's any consolation." The demon shrugged. "Parasitic wretched little morsel… The Ancients were like cockroaches. Not like you though, humans are _actually_ cockroaches you're just stupider."

They were close, the edge was creeping up like a wave and Yami was lost against the current.

"No…"

Another sob, crunched into the floor, splattered boneless in a body that only half responded to him Yami couldn't stand. Half because gravity seemed to double and all at once simultaneously because the pain inside his skull was mind shattering. He couldn't think, it was all writhing and Heba wouldn't even allow him the escape to scream. His vocal chords contracted, clamed up, as the impulse to call for help rose and the wraith crushed it jabbing hard at Yami's brain. It was an invisible bear trap and with every second Yami was losing. He'd been losing all night. Things were spiralling out of his control, memories unravelling and exhaustion mounting.

He slumped, hissed Yugi's named over and over and couldn't find anything else hold off the penetration that broke his brain waves like a hot poker thrust through the skin. Heba was pushing in deeper to his mind, trying to push at the inside of his skull and scramble his brains.

Yami didn't want to die.

He whimpered. He'd never really believe in life after death.

Silence, blackness, nothingness…

Fear compounded but everything hurt too much-

Yam-

_Yu_-

…

…_ba-thump_…

…

The room fell quiet after the sizzle. Nothing else was left. It was over.

Heba glanced from his nails and sighing up strayed, feet tapping, along the fine tiles to the ruined body that was lifeless almost at his feet like a carcass.

"Up," Heba ordered blandly.

Yami shambled clumsily upwards onto his unsteady feet. His face didn't show it but Heba could feel the last raptured fractions of the human's identity try to rebel in revulsion at his intrusion into the man's mind. There was no pushing back now however. Heba had invaded and conquered the simple synapses he'd been infecting for months. Sennen was as good as a broken puppet now and he would be just as useless when Heba withdrew his mind from the human.

"_Walk._"

Heba got the hang of it then, started to refine, the gist caught he relearnt the sensation of being utterly in possession of a fractured high-quality mind. Sennen was his now, all toy, but it had been so long since Heba had bothered to take every step with a host without some pre-existing files.

By the time Heba got his shattered, stolen, mantle to the labs he'd have Sennen sounding beautifully eloquent as always. With Motou gone who was going to notice the difference?

Time to get down to business.

* * *

(Track- Gumi 'Sweet Shackles')

"Well?" Heba strode. "Find my lastlings?

"We have confirmation Motou's heading to the border. Horakhty is in the Bohemian Capital. They're at least thirty-six hours apart not accounting for resistance Motou might encounter." Useless drone number four answered. The little mousy brunette who thought he would save her. She was one of the Knight's scraggly litter mates but Heba had counted on that. "Should we send units after him Sir?"

"No," he sighed, "the humans can't do any good against him. We'll just have to beat Motou there. I know just how too."

Yami's body following empty, void, after them it stumbled a little as Heba brought them to a halt in the hangar. Still, clumsy puppeteer or not, Heba paid that little notice for the moment especially when the view was _so_ beautiful.

It was done. A few hundred human minds had been exhausted and turned to slush in the process and just as many had died of exhaustion but it was worth it Heba felt. It was just a few more he didn't have to kill. There was something beautiful about having the vermin partake in the production of their own reckoning. For those few who helped it was redemptive almost. Heba liked to think they died a little better than the rest.

Either way, ten years ahead of schedule, Gozaburo's Z0-RC modelled off Heba's precious first child the _Kriegsmaschine_ was complete. All they needed to rush the project along was Heba at the helm really. Mother always knew best after all. He'd built the first one and the second had been no great trial. The Z0-RC was perhaps less fearsome in appearance than Heba's firstborn but nonetheless the humans were stupider than the Ancients of Zion, helpless, and they needed a lighter touch. Their bodies were so much weaker just like their minds. This machine ought to be enough to likewise defeat two little ancients in the EX0D1A assuming Yami's slut reached Horakhty before Heba found him. The Z0-RC had a few delightful surprises his old baby hadn't.

He purred. The laboratory had so much radiation that the levels were extreme enough for him to maintain something of a holographic, nearly stable hard-light, form. What did the humans need safety filters for in the base anyway if Heba was just going to eradicate them in the end? Besides all the radiation sterilized them after prolonged exposure, among other things, which was magnificently cleansing.

"_Wake_." He ordered.

Inside the Z0-RC Heba's real body had already been loaded and commanded by that electrics sizzled majestically to life.

The Z0-RC raised its head, long neck craning, like a starting jet engine as the metal whirred over charged. It was a monolith. Perfect.

"My baby," he crooned.

To his left Katsuya's sister was glassy eyed and entranced, her mind almost shattered after prolonged exposer to his presence, while to his right poor dead Sennen's eyes were lifeless.

Game set match Motou.

Heba was going to _eat_ him.

* * *

(Track- Pink 'The King is Dead but the Queen is Alive')

Atem didn't waste any time. He text the boys to keep their eyes open and next came his fast line in to Dartz. The phone buzzed two or three times and Atem thought she might not answer. When the line told him to leave a message Atem tried again. On the third ring Anzu surrendered.

"Hello? Horakhty?" They were so comfortable using last names in the military it wasn't a lack of closeness thing between he and Miss Anzu.

"Hey," he greeted curtly, skimming a little as he glanced both ways across the road he was darting. "Listen Anzu I need your help. You've got to get me on the phone with the President now. It's an emergency."

"What kind of emergency?"

"Top secret we need to deal with this right now kind," Atem clarified making his way down a set of concrete steps pass a modern art, rather ornamental , fountain outside one of the city's major office buildings.

"Horakhty," she wavered, "he's in a meeting with Pegasus. I'm going to need more than that to interrupt them."

"Then tell him Motou's hiking it to the Capital _right now_."

That got her attention. She told him to hold, but Atem could hear her phone charms clinking against the plastic as she hastened on kitten heels through the President's office. It helped to have friends. As Atem mounted the opposing set of stairs out of the little concrete valley before the office building he heard her open a door, heard half voices before there was proper sound again.

"Horakhty you're on speaker," Dartz greeted, "better be good. What's up?"

"I got a phone call from Yugi Motou," Atem answered pausing under a tree jutting up trapped in the side walk, scanning his suited company as they passed on their lunchbreaks. "He's coming here and he wants to see me and you Mister President."

"Motou_ called you?_" Dartz wheezed. "What do you mean he wants to talk?"

"He and the Knights are fleeing Imperial custody," Atem struggled to explain but knew he'd have to be careful, "Motou's stolen some kind of equipment from the Emperor and he wants to warn us about some kind of plan Sennen has up his sleeve."

"Why would Motou desert?" Pegasus piped up, genuinely confused. "Isn't he Sennen's pet?"

Atem was pretty sure that wasn't directed at him but Dartz came back to the meat of it.

"Horakhty how does Motou have your number?" He tried to fathom, clinging at the detail. "Who's to say this isn't a trap?"

"Because of Kul Elna," Atem half-lied. "I was going to explain it to you tomorrow but a group of well trained, well-armed, men tried to kill both of us on international soil. Motou told me he thought Sennen might be involved in trying to get rid of him. I tried to convince him to turncoat."

"When were you going to report this?" Dartz gaped.

"Tomorrow!" Atem defended again.

"So Motou's coming here?" The President clarified, letting it drop to get curtly back, apparently convinced.

"Yeah," Atem nodded, "he's bringing the Knights with him. They're running. He wants a meeting with both of us tomorrow. He's bringing mechs into the city with him. If you need a security detail ready we better get on it ASAP cause whatever he stole and whatever he thinks Sennen is planning it can't be good."

"We can't let Motou into the city armed," Pegasus gawked, "it'd be a massacre!"

"Secretary for Defence is right Horakhty," Dartz concurred. "How convinced are you this isn't a trap?"

"Motou's tried to kill me, multiple times, if anyone should be sceptical, with all due respect Sir, it's me. He's _scared_." Atem tried to emphasise. "Pack the city with guards if you want, pat him down and throw him through metal detectors in the office but if we don't take him in now you're going to lose the best chance we've got to finish this. He's ready to do the right thing. I'm positive._ Please_."

"Mister President if we let that kid within ten feet of you and this goes wrong," Pegasus tilted gently, "you could be down _so fast_ I don't know if my men could intercept it. That boy does not need a gun to break your neck."

"I'll be there," Atemu promised, "I won't let anything happen. I've beaten him in hand to hand before. I can take it!"

"There's no way we've got time to forge a press screen," Dartz tarried, "the media will be on this like bees the second those imperial rigs set food within the city."

"I think that's part of what he wants," the man supposed, "let the whole world know he's switching."

"Well," Pegasus laughed with a little song, "it'd certainly ruin enemy morale."

"This better not go the wrong way Horakhty," Dartz warned gently, "or I'm screwed."

"It won't come to that, I'll make sure of it," he promised gritting his teeth.

_Please believe in me_.

_I want to free Yugi_.

* * *

(Track- Pink 'Just Give Me a Reason')

Atem had spent the night on a couch in the President's office, his mech on the roof, waiting. He and Anzu had a little camp out in the office while Dartz and Pegasus tried to rail road press through the night. Marik, Odion and Bakura were standing by in the city hangar less than five minutes away at racing speed should the worst occur. Ishtar wasn't happy, didn't approve of any of it, and Atem was wary that considering she'd only let him have her brother on the condition of taking Odion as well…

Atem's back cramped, hand behind his head, and sleep wasn't easy coming with the way the nerves froze his stomach and the energy drinks killed his buzz. Tomorrow night he might have Yugi back in his arms again, coiled, finally safe. That overwhelmed him, joy so close he could almost grab it as it bubbled between the layers of his skin. It was like he was reaching for a bird's nest hanging off the drainpipe of the house. He'd done that once and luckily not broken anything on the fall. This couldn't be a trap, he was positive but there were always second guesses about the details. Yugi Motou, his Firecracker, didn't get scared for no reason.

Anzu looked haggard by dawn, both of them a little gaunt, and she'd finally consented to kicking her heels off her blistered feet around four am when on a coffee run Dartz had revealed he'd been married long enough to sympathise.

When they sent the seven thirty intern off to get breakfast and coffee Dartz had beckoned Anzu and Atem into the meeting room to wait to eat. He'd called his wife, refused to let her out of the presidential quarters half a city away with a bomb shelter in the basement but clearly wanted her. Atem could hear him, at the edge of the room, making babble at his baby girl and was mildly envious. He didn't want medals. Atem Horakhty wanted a_ family_.

Pegasus was still dialling numbers and a little flippant, rather optimistic by nature, Atem found he didn't mind the man. He wasn't as imposing a militant as Sennen, or as clever, but he could strategize alright. Atem caught his eye, they exchanged tiny cordial smiles and Anzu leant tiredly into Atem's shoulder murmuring. She missed her bed and her shoebox apartment but she wouldn't think of leaving. She'd miss it then; possibly the most fate splitting moment in the history of the war. Yugi Motou switching sides to the blues…

"What?" Pegasus pressed the handset a little closer to his mouth across the meeting table. "Repeat that for me?"

He had one of the clunky office phones in hand, scribbling notes, and pulled the oddest scrunched expression. He started moving with a little more animation, fingers faster, and that slack jawed kiddy act of his evaporated up into a grown man talking business. Atem tilted his head, a cat across the board table, and pushed back the too buttery city food. What now?

"How big?" Pegasus mumbled, pushing out of the chair, to drift towards the windows. "Where? No, surely not…_seriously?_" That sounded a bit too sceptical and breathless.

Dartz had drifted back from the bathroom now with the fresh security detail for the morning and spotting him Pegasus um'd into the phone.

"I've got a meeting this morning- Yeah, you'll see it on the news alright," Pegasus laughed tightly, "but monitor that till then. Tell border patrol twelve to get their ass in gear and- the sat's down? How'd we break a satellite? Shit, well figure it out."

Dartz stood by the long board table with his hands fuddled in his pockets, looking creased, and met Atem's eye to cock one thumb to Pegasus and half mouth a question. Atem shrugged, Anzu's head heavy on his shoulder making him feel like a big brother. Pegasus put the phone down on the table a second later, sighed, and collected his answers.

"Something wrong?" Dartz pondered lightly.

"Well…" Pegasus sighed, slumping into his seat. "Border patrol made a report last night about a UFO passing the line. Estimated four hundred meters but they aren't answering to recon. HQ's been trying to confirm it on satellite but the one in that region's cocking up."

"UFO?" Atemu mumbled to Anzu.

"Unidentified flying object-"

"Yeah, no, I know," Atem laughed in a fumble. He came from the land of farmers theorizing urban legends about crop stories but… "Four hundred meters _big?_ The hell could…?"

"Nothing realistically," Pegasus placated, "the tech's probably just fucked. Funding, you know?"

The curse of the Bohemian army was nothing if not the choke hold of expenses. Atem nodded consolingly but Dartz, all of them actually, still seemed lingeringly uneasy.

"Horakhty do you suppose Motou…?" Dartz paused, couldn't seem to find a proper question.

"I don't…" Atem shrugged. "Imps couldn't have something that big could they?"

"No," Pegasus mumbled, then to himself. "No."

"You have them monitoring it don't you?" Dartz queried back to the Secretary for Defence and Pegasus confirmed with a quick curt nod. "Good, we'll be fine then. Something that big can't just sneak round without someone seeing it. It'd been on the systems."

"Right…" Atem murmured but…

A sneaky, hushed, voice spoke up suddenly: _unless it's ploughing down everything along the way to hush the screams. _

Was he ready for this?

* * *

(Track- Iko 'Heart of Stone'/ Feist 'Fire in the Water')

Dartz was trying not to pace. Atem wasn't used to being this close to him in private but the others had been shuffled off to manage security detail. Anzu wasn't trained in hand to hand either. That toy pistol of hers was a joke. Still, waiting with the president while a flurry of kevlar suited broncos tried to pat down Yugi Motou and the Knights in the hallways Atem felt like a traitor. Though… not exactly. Half of him felt like the peacemaker, tentatively heroic in a true survival sense, but the rest felt like a twenty-three year old boyfriend waiting for his sig-other at an airport after a business trip. He was trying not to bounce on his toes impatiently as he cultivated a fake slouch.

The door fluttered like an old saloon. Dartz solidified, petrified, and Atem felt all the air sucked out of him compress him to a firmer position. Yugi strode and up close, in that combat suit of elegant sleek purple, looked every bit the badass.

Yugi _mother fucking_ Motou had arrived.

Atem tried to breathe out and only half managed it through his teeth. Yugi seemed all the legend right now and not the sinewy bundle who rubbed at the back of his neck. He looked a weapon in heeled boots not the long legged man who smelt of rivers and forests and cherries; not Atem's.

The Knights were statuesque and sharp close behind but they didn't pass from the boardroom into the private office where Dartz stood painfully close to the windowed wall overlooking the city from the skyscraper. As Yugi came closer they fell back to wait with a volley of security hazy over their shoulders. Atem had never had a chance to see their faces in person for longer than a second or two he realized.

Fuck, there were so many people he knew yet hardly knew at all. They had so much history cut out of a strange intimacy like they all knew each other long distance. Bullet riddled pen pals eh?

Yugi-

Atem's chain of thought died, Adam's-Apple bobbed, as Yugi slowed the current of his stride to drift not to Dartz but directly to Atem. He stopped when the Bohemian didn't think he would just three feet away.

The eye contact was mystifying. Atem's hands fell, unconsciously respectful, from his pockets so he could stand to attention. It was strange. On one hand those eyes were alien, wild, and frighteningly focused but in the twitch of Yugi's expression there grew an unquenchable magnetism to throw themselves at each other. Atem was caught between images of duelling stags and foreign lovers. Then again contrasts probably worked considering this was… Yugi might be about to switch…

"Atem," he breathed.

"Yugi," he tried not to smile but his heart was in dire straits when he saw Yugi falter with the same motion (though his was sadder). Dartz made half a noise, barely, and coughing Atem gestured. "Yugi, this is President Dartz."

Dartz inclined his chin but was cautious to offer his hand and not at all off put, not intimidated a slither, Yugi nodded blandly.

"Sweet," he shrugged, refocusing on Atem. "We need to talk without suits. Now."

"You can talk to me but I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on security." Dartz intervened though he seemed to hardly know what to do, creeping to lean closer, obviously a little perplexed by Yugi's size. For such an explosive personality Yugi was, admittedly, strikingly petite. Happy Meal sized.

"Then I warned you." Yugi grunted brazenly at which Dartz recoiled and there was a muffle behind them. Yugi turned to the guards who had slunk closer to the Knights and scoffed. "Keep it in your pants shit heads. I don't have time for your crap."

"Uh…" Dartz wanted to say something but… Nope. Gone.

"Alright," Yugi finally met his eye, "listen up big guy. If you want to win the war you've got about… fuck if I know, probably_ today_, to save your ass or we're all fucked."

"Excuse me…?"

"Short version: there's a brain eating parasitic AI in the Empire that's got a super weapon right about to blow us off the face of the earth." Yugi cut straight to it. "So we need to get shit together _now_."

"A _what?_" Dartz wheezed.

"Jesus," Yugi groaned, "you want the crib notes? There's a giant monster coming to blow up the city. I don't have time to walk you through the epic. Phone, orders, soldiers- _now_. You need to hold it at the border where it's all desert if we're going to minimize the loss of life and it's probably already moving."

"I… I don't…" The President had lost vocalization. Yeah, okay, Atem hadn't planned for this one. "You're serious…?"

"Why am I even talking to you?" Yugi grunted, twisting like a snake. "Atem they've got a mech. Z0-RC. I need you, the Knights and an army to take care of it or we're all going to die. I'll explain later. If we go now-"

"Wait! Wait!" Dartz was struggling, trying to recover. "What on earth are you talking about? What the hell do you mean a _brain eating AI?_"

"You're focusing on that?" The Imperial groaned. "Bigger fish right now Fabio. There's no-"

"No, no this is ridiculous," Dartz extended his hands. "You are going to slow down right now and explain to me what on earth is going on!"

Silence. Atem felt trapped. Yugi raised one brow and behind him the Knights pulled closer as if someone had just slapped the biggest shark in the tank. Honda had his head down, someone's little kid, going _'oh shit you don't talk to mum like that dude_…'

"Now," the President sighed, trying to be reasonable. "Motou we would very much like your assistance and we're very happy to shelter you from_ whatever_ but you're talking pig Latin right now. Take a breath, we will sort this out but you need to-"

"Yo dumbfuck," Yugi interjected tartly.

"-Wha…?" Dartz recoiled, taken aback.

"Yeah, you," Yugi thrust his index finger at the leader of the free world. "_Shut up_."

"W-what…?" Dartz stumbled.

"Horakhty, I need your help," he appealed repositioning himself back towards the pilot. His face changed as if in that second Yugi felt dreadfully exposed revealing anything as private as what was about to come out in front of his mouth. "There's this thing called Heba and it's taken over the Empire. It's not human. It's going to destroy everyone if you don't help me stop it. I've got something called the EX0D1A that can handle it but the mech needs two pilots."

"He-ba…?" Atem blinked. "Yugi, I don't understand-"

"Millions of years ago Heba killed everyone, the Ancients of Zion, it almost killed_ us_." He hissed trying breathlessly to get it all out and find recognition in the Republican. "Now it's going to wipe out the humans too. We can stop it. They put us in the pods so we'd survive for the sake of the species."

"_Us? Pods?_ Yugi what-"

"You're the heir of the last Pharaoh of Zion and I'm the heir of the last Praxia-Pura of Zion. I don't remember much else but; I know that _thing_ destroyed everything in our whole world, I know you're like me and I know we_ don't have time for this!_"

"Like…we're not human?" Atem fathomed to grasp but the clogs were ticking over.

"Yes!" He hissed, fingers clenching, foot almost stamping. "I'll give you the whole fucking story later! I need you now! It's coming! Get your shit together soldier!"

"You're crazy," Dartz breathed. "Motou you're absolutely…" He gazed over the Knights. "He really believes this? Why haven't any of you put him in damn hospital? The kid's blown a gasket! He clearly needs medical attention-!"

"It's true!" Jou rasped loudly. "It's fucking true! I saw it! There's something evil back home and its coming after us!"

"Fuck you," Yugi snapped at Dartz briskly before rounding back on Atem trying very hard not to grab him and haul him closer, appealing all eyes. "I'm serious. I swear to_ God_ Horakhty if you don't help me everyone is going to be _obliterated_."

Atem didn't know what to say. Just out of his notice the sky beyond the windows darkened considerably in a way that was atmospheric. Something fell smashing down in the back of his mind as _Heba_ and _Zion_ became syllables flying out of Yugi's mouth. His memory, his mother's suicide and-

The room was spinning, Atem's stomach flipped abruptly-

"_Mister President!"_

Pegasus smashed through, between the Knights, tumbling into the office like a buffoon on roller skates. He drew even Yugi's attention but only about three rasping attempts at an explanation escaped befor-

_**SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEECH**_

* * *

Next Time: Shit it's here! Fuck! Boys move! Damn it someone get me the Empir- Ya-_Yami…?_ Yami! What? No! You're out of your mind if you thin- Since when do I follow orders!?


	29. Chapter 29

PREPARE FOR BATTLE MY BABIES. IT IS ON LIKE DONKEY KONG.

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

(Track- FOB "Dance Dance" String Quartet Ver.)

It seemed to break the wall of heaven somehow, that gut wrenching sound, and eardrums rang. Atemu's hands flew to his ears, Yugi swore and dashing spun towards the windowed wall.

The shadow that had fallen over the city wasn't cloud cover.

It was here.

Yugi was out of time he fathomed. It had followed faster than he'd expected. It must've been right over his shoulder the whole way here. He might've just lost.

Despite his panicked entrance the screech had thrown Pegasus to sundered silence. The security, the Knights, the President and even Atem had frozen. Yugi's lips fell apart. His heart hammered up his throat; his mother, Yami, everyone in the Empire, Jou's sister, Atem-

It was _enormous_ but enormous wasn't the right word, that was too coy, it didn't have enough syllables to properly express the magnitude of what filled the entire scope of Yugi's vision.

Yugi had hoped that foggy recollection of his nightmarish childhood had all been a mistake, a child's approximation, but this thing seemed bigger than the _Kriegsmaschine_ he remembered. This was new alright. Heba had built a totally new weapon to come crashing down on them like revelation. This monster was… it didn't look like it could be a machine, it didn't look like it could be _real_. It looked like it had stumbled out of a bad storybook and the window before Yugi was nothing but a framed comic panel in stark realistic detail.

It was steel, all dark layers of machinery and wires. To make solid plates of armour for it, big enough for it, would've been logistically impossible. Yugi's inner mechanic, built in from his born-to-pilot genetics, told him that much and made the chain mail jigsaw of the dark blinking lights and huge bizarre thing seem more comprehensible.

Like a… wyvern? Something that Yugi had seen in the family crests and shields back in the Palace. It had a shape that belonged with dragons, griffins, chimeras and the whole zoo of composite beasts. It stretched out. Wings blocked the sun leaving splintered light. The two feet grasped the top of a sky scrapper, that started moaning audibly through the glass, groaning under the weight and pressure of essentially sitting a sky scrapper on top of _another_ sky scrapper.

The swan like, domed, mouth started to unhinge yawning open.

They were so fucked.

Yugi panicked. To his right Atem had petrified to raw mineral density, garnet eyes awed, and lips thinned looked so pale it was like his heart had already stopped beating. Yugi needed him. He needed him _now_.

It was the only thing Yugi had left, their last try and even then this was a new breed of monster they might be helpless against. The EX0D1A wouldn't unfurl totally for him. He literally couldn't make it work to its full potential. It needed two pilots. It needed two incredible pilots and he realized, brokenly, that there was only one other man on earth who could match him. The only chance they had lay in this entirely.

"What is _that?_" Dartz whispered.

"That is the end of the world," Yugi snapped ignoring him entirely to lock eyes hard on Horakhty, "and unless you help me we're all going to die_ right now._"

"Th-that…" Atem was very quiet suddenly, a tremulous shudder running up his spine as the shadow of the Z0-RC settled over the city filling the frame of the window. "I… I remember that…"

"Horakhty!" Yugi pestered. "Snap out of it! I need your help!"

"Mama…" It was tiny, almost uncatchable, but Yugi hooked onto it as the Republican seemed to come unlaced in a second. _Of course_, the mother who killed herself; another victim of Heba.

Their building shook. The sky darkened. Through the glass Yugi could hear the burnt forest silence on the wind of a populace frozen waiting. It screeched. Yugi's instinct, childish nightmares, told him that whatever it had it the Z0-RC was about to use. That was the warning trumpet.

They were all going to die. Every human being on this nasty little planet was about to go up in flames just like Yugi's whole world had however many million years ago. They were at the point of desperation. Mind collapsing or not, remembering or not, Atem Horakhty was the only way out and he needed to be moved.

"_Atem!_" He clambered wrenching hard at his arm with both hands. "Atem help me! Please! _Come on!"_

"I…" Atem flustered blinking to consciousness from the inner depths of himself, rising to the surface, through glassy glimmering eyes to find Yugi Motou stupidly beside him trying to urge him. "Wh-what do we do?"

"The EX0D1A," Yugi hissed, "help me pilot. We'll kill it."

"Yeah…" he gulped still lost somewhere untethered, "okay, yes, where?"

Every word found a little more strength as he fought to find his voice and leaping internally Yugi squeezed his fingers viciously round the republican's upper arm in joyous relief. _Yes, thank god! Come back!_ He grasped the man's wrist hard and tugging stumbled into a run totally abandoning the befuddled president to burst into the hallway. Yugi didn't dare stop but Jou, sharp as ever the brilliant man, caught his footsteps and turned from his own horrified vigil to stir the troops into chase after Motou and Horakhty.

They had one last chance to set this right and Yugi had never imagined he would feel this desperate to have the three stupid elites standing next to him to face this. He needed them with him, this bemused pack of other beings who had latched onto his existence, and dragging Atem Horakhty by the wrist Yugi knew they were the same kind and that soon Yugi would need him too. He couldn't picture, couldn't imagine, not being alone as the last of his species anymore but he might have a tomorrow to face it if he ran fast enough. Begging himself to pound his feet faster Yugi clung to the concept, above all else, that if they just found the grove in time he could save Yami Sennen too.

Chaos had erupted in the packed civilian streets of the Bohemian capital and directing Atem Horakhty's taller body towed behind him Yugi burst into the stair well down a frantic hallway choked with running staff.

The Z0-RC wouldn't hold back. The elevators would be yo-yoing between summons, the stairs down throbbed with desperate life trying to spurge into the streets where it wouldn't be any better. This was the end of the world Yugi knew. This was day one. He pulled them upwards. Jou, Otogi and Honda's boots slapped hard on the concrete behind him in close pursuit. Atem Horakhty laced their fingers with a man's strength as they pelted heavenwards, Yugi too focused to even raise a consideration to it, and breathed hard at his back.

_**BOOM**_

The building rocked, all thirty storeys of it swayed them nearly off their feet as outside the windowless stairwell hell hit the surface of the earth with an ear splitting sonic thunder crash.

Yugi pushed, fluttering plastic wood in slam.

The concrete roof sprawled open before Yugi as he threw the door open. Smoke filled his lungs like water down a shoot, car sirens, screaming he could hear even at the top of the sky scrapper formed the unity of the sounds. The sky overhead had come asunder, clouds darkening as they too seemed to burn under the attack. He saw lightning, or something manmade but equivalent, from the corner of his eyes but kept running focused solely on the looming hunch of the EX0D1A awaiting him.

He heard the second explosion. The sound was a sonic boom after the blistering light impact. It had hit a building nearby that began shrieking in a cluster of breaking pylons. The world was falling to pieces.

It didn't matter. Yugi's calves burned, knees swung, lungs fought and every second he had ever spent on a treadmill had been subconsciously ready, waiting, for this one single moment. Atem's stride became stronger beside him on the republican's longer legs and as they skidded to the EX0D1A. That vice like hand round his took Yugi into the man's arms absently and in a brisk, unthinking, gesture Atem Horakhty demonstrated his sheer strength as he hefted Yugi up towards the cockpit of the EX0D1A without pause or hesitation or fault.

The Knights scrambled round them to their stolen units, not even swearing, and the whole of the civilian population seemed to have their screams unified into one grand howl that came up with the wind in a chorus. The cockpit of the EX0D1A split open by the command of the nearly sentient AI inside that could sense Yugi, had synced with his combat suit, and unfolding like a lotus flower it let him in.

Atem was grunting, hefting himself up afterward.

The alloy blend of metals round them snapped shut. A full three hundred and sixty degrees of high-def screens flared to glorious, symphonic, life and frantic Yugi clunked himself into a harness as Atem stumbled up after him. It all happened so easily; they snap-clicked right into place like the machine had been built to fit them. They found the harnesses without words, pushed into the pedals and slammed their backs hard into each other.

"_100% integrity. Calibrating system to second pilot._"

The prompts on the screen had already snapped up. Yugi's eye contact, his comprehension of them, stripped them from their points. His hands twisted in the handles, Atem's elbow brushed behind him. How was this supposed to move? How was this supposed to work? How could two people possibly-

"_Mind Link Established. All systems go._"

Yugi's temples whooshed in, exploded, and like a hard dunk under the surf he forgot how to breath, kicked upside down but his hands knew exactly how to move. His whole body knew exactly what the machine was doing, what it was thinking, what Atem was doing, what Atem was thinking, how to do it all slammed down his central cortex.

Adrenaline suppressed him and the exact details of what was happening or how he did it faded from Yugi. All he knew was what he had always known; the effortless way with which to twist his body inside a cockpit, his natural habitat.

* * *

(Track- Bjork "Army of Me" Sucker Punch Remix)

The EX0D1A flowed on rollers, high speed, and zinging over the concrete of the roof flew to leap onto the surface of the next after the beast. The cockpit didn't even shudder as the rollers crossed bear air and slammed into the roof of the next building. It cradled Yugi and Atem tight as chicks in a nest. The safest place on earth.

_Let's do this_.

"Boys after me!" Yugi hissed and automatically the EX0D1A wired the necessary connections to their cockpits. Amazing.

"_Sir yes sir!_" They chorused.

"Where's my unit?" Atem hollered.

The AI sizzled. A whole swarm of bombarding frequencies rose up from the speakers; the cacophony of the entire, panicked, Bohemian army came crashing down on them as if the ceiling had fallen in. The EX0D1A started isolating signals, started picking out the fodder to narrow down the field of focus…

Yugi was only honed on one thing: it.

The Z0-RC was firing an enlarged version of the electric pulse laser. Seto Kaiba's greatest invention had been adapted by Heba into one thick, broad, beam of electrified hell that came searing and decimating right out of the yawning mouth the beast. Things sizzled out of existence, radiated to nothingness. The whole torso, the belly, churned seeming to spin round for the sole purpose of creating the beam like a furnace.

The sky scrapper the Z0-RC had settled on was falling out from under it and as it tumbled the Z0-RC cocked its head mount left, right, over one shoulder and then the other splintering whole buildings with a flash of light that seared entire levels out of existence.

One skyscraper, thirty storeys, had fallen and the force of the blasts was throwing the wreckage into each other in a chain of destruction. It was almost, ironically, like Yugi's ring of fire in Siege. Guilt, grief- Yugi steeled himself and suddenly there was an undercutting slash from _Atem's_ mind; peace, focus, revenge.

The Knights, the EX0D1A, followed trying to get close enough to it to land a hit worth any impact. The buildings were quickly becoming molten, giving, stepping stones, sinking pebbles, under their foot work and the streets bellow were strangled with the ant forms of more than a million civilians. _Shitshitshit_.

Atem was shouting.

"Come up south side!" He ordered his boys. "Has the President deployed special forces yet?

"I'm overriding him!" A stout female voice hollered. "Deploy_ everything!_ I want that thing nuked!"

"Get me some fucking backup!" Atem swore for what seemed to first time in his life. "We've got to pull it back round! Someone needs to move the civilians!

_"How?_" She screeched.

"Find a way!" He bellowed, had a king's voice it struck Yugi, but behind it, inside it, the EX0D1A facilitated Yugi with the ability to see passion, love, desperation in Atem.

An idea caught Yugi.

"EX!" Yugi shrieked blindly. "Connect with the Z0-RC! Expose frequency!"

"_Connecting."_

Atem's head spun, understood Yugi's plan in a nano-second and lurching forward together they halted the mech on its rollers long enough to rip open the weapons cache. Yugi dug his hands in, confirmed the order, and-

_"Connected._"

-threw a golden pulse of their own, a flare, up towards the burning, smog choked, sky.

"Hey Ugly!" He screamed. "Over here!"

The Z0-RC halted, lurched, and all four hundred meters of it twisted that long, sinuous neck, towards Yugi, Atem and the Knights. The mouth opened.

"_There you are."_ Heba purred.

It fired.

They scattered off the corners of the roof, started flying, freefalling, towards the pavement, and just above them the beam evaporated, eradicated, every little trace of matter where they had_ just been_.

"Come and get it fuckface!" Yugi snapped as radar flared. The Z0-RC was hopping, crashing, onto buildings. Yugi could hear screeching as it tried to get closer to them.

Atem turned them down, kicked the thrusters, and twisting them on the rollers moved them back the way they had come in the opposing direction. The Knights followed.

Heba was laughing, Yugi could hear it on the speakers, it was so cut, so clear, and the voice was fragmenting frequencies. Not so human anymore, not fake, Heba's _actual_ voice as only the ears of an Ancient could perceive it. Atem tightened behind Yugi.

Yugi's screen flared a proximity warning but couldn't even fathom how much higher the Z0-RC was above them filling them in under its shadow.

"_I see you Lastlings._"

The beam shattered the tar of the road. The Knights darted, Yugi had no idea how they shuddered out of the line of fire but Otogi's unit was clipped which was still in itself a miracle. Maybe months of living, training, with Yugi had helped them somehow. Either way the EX0D1A was built, at least, to move fast, limber and rushing, under pelting rains of lightning.

Yugi and Atem moved together, slipped out from under the beam but felt another wave coming.

"I'm going to cut your face off you ugly bitch!" Yugi promised.

"_Sennen tasted like old rat._"

Yugi's insides twisted outwards. _No_.

"Holy mother fucking shit!" Someone hollered across the radio. Akefia?

"Bout fucking time!" Atem boomed. "Everyone fire! Close in and cut it up!"

"No one stop moving!" Yugi hissed, whooshed back to his senses. "Aim for the leg joints, sharp shoot, bring it down!"

* * *

(Track- Rozen Maiden "Overture" ending)

_LHBEJVHBTHRSJBVKNZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZ_

_Crackle-zzzzz-BEEP-BEEP-Psst_

"-get it fuckface!"

Yu-Yugi…?

_HBVHJBEJHVBJTBVZZZZZZZZHHHHH HHHKFKGGH_

_BEEP-Zssst-Hhhhhnnnn-BEEEP_

_-I see you Lastlings-_

Heba.

His legs, his chest, felt compacted, crushed, into a tight space. His neck ached from the lull of his head but physicality came back to him slowly. Sweat, humidity, the whirr of a million electronics sizzling over atop each other.

_Pssst-HHHHHHH-JBFJHWRBJHWB  
_  
His head- _Oh his head_- felt split, like it was pulsing out nerve endings instead of blood. Three hundred million little pulses, synapses, were falling over each other lost. He was… every breath was barely there, sick, he forgot it for a moment and almost choked like he was drowning on air…

A whisper, soft and lilted and pretty-tiny in a voice he didn't recognise. It was alien, inhuman, cool; Heba's voice, Heba's _real_ voice, sloshing around inside his head. Broken it seemed to say three things at once, processing over-fast, knowing everything, feeling everything, ignoring him and his existence. Distracted.  
_  
Hhaaaaaa-NUUU-BEEEEEP_

Every voice, every frequency, was fluttering in too. Not inside his temples like Heba's gooey warm amniotic presence. No in the speakers there was the flutter of a million soldiers; screaming, lost, dying, bad, sloppy, frantic orders. It was going to be too easy.

Y-Yami.

Right, him, he cringed every signal up his spine swimming like needles, branding... He needed to come back, he needed to- what did he…?

"-Aim for the leg joints, sharp shoot, bring it down!"

_Yugi_.

Fighting, saving, protecting- He needed to help Yugi._ Now_.

Yami forced his eyes open, even that little motion felt like it might force his heart to stop, how was he still alive? How was he breathing? He was dying, he could feel his heart stuttering. The wires round him, steel cabling, were too hot. This cockpit had never been intended for a pilot, not one who'd survive, Heba had played him like violin melting his brain cells from day one.

His throat hurt, every tiny hair follicle hurt, zapping, zinging, blistering.

_No time_.

Yami moved, felt like his bones would pull open, marrow dribbling, while his tendons all unlaced and his veins stopped pumping but he moved.

_I don't care_.

Heba's slippery, mingling, multilayered voice sung harmonic and dazzling till his head swam.

_Fuck you_.

Yami pushed up, his hands fumbled, and reaching and in that first, hesitant, way he had taken the handles of a mech when he was seven years old he found a grip even as the knuckles in his fingers felt shattered.

Sat, Nav, radar, flickering HD screens in off colours… there were systems here, controls here, Yami had never seen before and as he curled his fingers he found the mental uninsulated; cattle branding levels molten. He didn't let go. He'd been a soldier, he'd piloted strange mechs before, sure not ones spilling out feeds in a language beyond his comprehension but…

_Last chance, last chance to make it count, to make it better_…

He squeezed, his vision blurred, he- KJBCJKHBRJHBOWUAUAUAAA-

He shook his head, the motion felt like a head on collision, Heba whispered processing in that magnetic way and Yami queasily dragged every last splintering nerve he had together.

_Yugi_.

He grunted, repeated it, his last prayer, the final mantra, over and over and over flooding it all out. To bring himself together, to fight the way light spun out in his eyes and made him dizzy he… ZZZZZZZZZZ-Crackkkl-_YugiYugiYugiYugi_… He inhaled, swallowed, leant forward. He had to make this count.

He'd been a fool, worse than that, something he couldn't even name with enough hatred. He'd been half Heba. He'd been… Yami couldn't ever apologize, shouldn't have had the chance but he was still here, still breathing, and as long as he was he owed Yugi everything he had left in all the calescent agony. He needed to fight. This was the last chance, the one he didn't deserve, and dragging himself by his teeth he would swim towards that light.

_Yugi_.

_I'm coming._

Time to torch the witch once and for all. Heba was going to be sorry he'd put Yami in this viewing gallery fish-tank shit hole he called a cockpit. Well, before Yami burnt in hell for this anyway.

* * *

(Track- "Are we All we Are" Pink)

Clusterfuck, shattering bullets, Yugi's head spun. He and Atem twisted the EX0D1A right out of the slice of the next beam. The Z0-RC's legs were covered too tight. Even Jou's sharp shooting couldn't split the massive pistons and hold the thing down. They were in trouble. It was mowing down whole sections of their reinforcements. Whole chunks of the Republic's finest eradicated in seconds while Atem and Yugi danced under it. How all six of their joint Knights were still in one piece was a miracle.

"We have to kill it!"

"I know that!" Yugi screamed fiercely.

"You're the ones with the super mech!" Akefia hollered back.

"You tell me where to aim then fuckface!"

Tension. Lightning. The electric pulse laser on the Z0-RC had a much wider beam than Yugi's and the way it swept its head in the motion could take out the entire, populated, city._ Shitshitshit!_ Panic, the sky was falling. Atem's back was hard and warm against Yugi's and how they knew how to move in such synchronization was partially Yugi assumed from their skill, their battles, but part from the EX0D1A helping connect them. The interflow was amazing but still it might not be enough. The EX0D1A had been built to stop the _Kriegsmaschine_ not the Z0-RC which thus far seemed to be Heba's greatest creation. They might be at a disadvantage here.

"Show me the schematics," Yugi hissed, and in a whir the EX0D1A brought up every detailed record of the _Kriegsmaschine _it had on file. Maybe…

The specs lay up over the HD, over the cam-feed, and as the Z0-RC flittered in and out of vision the EX0D1A tried to compare details looking for an inch to take. It didn't overwhelm Yugi or Atem. They were genetically cross-built for this and as the EX0D1A's sentience dipped into them it kept them stable while injecting new details. The Z0-RC was definitely Heba's work but-

"Get the Hawkins talking with Ryou!" Atem shouted.

"They are!" General Ishtar sounded hysterical on the radio. A thousand, million, voices were screaming. Yugi could hear civilians crying in the streets through the steel of the cockpit.

The Z0-RC rounded, tail _thwamping _down hard enough to shake the skyscraper streets in an attempt to knock them off their feet.

Yugi gasped, Atem wrenched at the handles, and if it hadn't been for their combined reflexes Yugi never would've dodged in time.

"I got ya," Atem hissed over his shoulder into Yugi's ear, "don't flip on me now Baby."

"R-right!" Yugi fought to focus. Where the fuck were they supposed to aim on this thing?

Dartz had deployed all the force the capital had at this point. The knights were out in force. There were seven of them counting unified Atem and Yugi as one unit but still nothing seemed quite to strike the Z0-RC hard enough. Heba was laughing at them. Yugi could hear it rattling under everything filling the radio like a bleeding vein of frequencies. They weren't going to die now. It wasn't going to happen again. No.

"_If you just give up and stand still lastlings I'll make it faster for you than the meatbags!_" Heba laughed gleefully, frequency shrieking out into the cockpit of the EX0D1A.

At once the mech lowered the sound, pushed it down, wouldn't let the other machine's frequency reach Atem and Yugi so hard. The EX0D1A understood somehow how that voice made them both panic instinctively. This thing had destroyed their whole world once and made them watch as children. It set Yugi's hair on end, unnerved, but stringing himself together he realized he was shouting back.

"In your dreams you nasty bitch!"

_"Have it your way roach slut_," Heba purred, low and rumbling into a hiss. It was a bad approximation of Yugi's voice and just the sound of it, like he was arguing with himself, hurt.

Another strike; hard artillery, iron lances shot out of the Z0-RC and ripped up the tar left on the road like railroad spikes.

"Holy shit!" Malik Ishtar.

"Everyone hold on!" Atem spun them back round.

His hand flung to the screen of the EX0D1A and Yugi's touched the matching prompt before it even came up. He knew in the second the thought touched Atem's mind what he was planning and the EX0D1A told him just where to hit. The fireworks they shot back seared part of the chainmail on the mammoth alright, hissed, but it didn't do anything worthwhile. Heba laughed. Yugi hissed, Atem grunted, they needed somewhere to hit. They needed a critical spot.

The EX0D1A was still processing the old weak spots from the _Kriegsmaschine_ but as it searched for matching hit points on the Z0-RC found Heba had learned, had covered his ass._ Damn it!_

"Everything has to bend over sometimes," Atem grunted over his shoulder, country slang in effect. "We'll get it."

"I don't know how much time we've got." Yugi spat, turning to the radio. EX0D1A hooked him to the President. "Evacuations?"

"City's choked, too much rubble, I've got no idea how many people are still trapped in your quarter!" Dartz answered. "We're trying to clear the North side. Keep it where it is. It's the only way to minimize the damage!"

"Oh yeah cause that's practical!" Akefia Bakura seethed over their frequency. "You come down and dance with Godzilla pigwig!"

"Shut up!" Atem ordered. "Jou! Ryou! Rebecca! Someone give me good news!"

"I've never seen anything like it," Rebecca Hawkins' cam feed flared up on screen from her temporarily safe HQ base, "it's beyond our century! I don't know what to tell you Horakhty! I've got no idea how it's standing!"

"Someone call the Empire!" Yugi ordered. "Kaiba built the pulse laser its using. If the Emperor's gone under then Mahado will be in charge, chances are the prince is alive, if we can talk to hi- _Shit!_"

Atem and Yugi side swiped as spinning the Z0-RC bought down a composite construction of metal, it's tail, about as wide as a semi at the tip. Atem inhaled sharp, Yugi felt like he was drowning and the synchronization between them jumped up again.

"We're trying," Pegasus answered, "their communications network is fucked tight! I can't even get a response from half of _our_ bases!"

"Damn it!" Yugi slammed the throttle. Heba had left them all split up from each other.

"_Who's afraid of the big bad wolf yet?_" Heba's voice had this ordained power to split, rapturous, through everything because, unlike every other sound, it was as inhuman as gears grinding half Yugi but so clearly disparate. It had too many layers. He- _it_ laughed, honed and all at once another section of their aerial forces was split from the sky.

"Tem," Yugi rasped, "please?" _Tell me you have something_.

Atem grit his teeth. An image of a weathered cottage farmhouse flashed in the back of the mental connection between them and Yugi felt his lips purse. _No, not yet, they couldn't die yet, not like this…_

A splinter of fear between them emerged. This was just like the old days, just like last time Heba had boiled the oceans and obliterated the world. Their whole species might've died for nothing and another might follow.

"Not if I can fucking help it," Yugi dug his elbows in, _Yami's waiting_. "EX! Whatever you've got I want it now!"

The EX0D1A dazzled and emerging on the centre screen it drew the attention of both pilots to a central point in the control panel. The screen prompt flared golden:

_FINAL COMMAND SEQUENCE: OBLITERATE_.

Atem swallowed. The specs flared. That would be one hell of an explosion. They could bring down a lot with them if they weren't careful. They'd need to get in closer and if the Z0-RC _fell_ on them…

"Where do we aim?" Atem surged brave, courageous and _ready_. "We'll only get one shot at that."

Yugi dragged his teeth over his bottom lip.

"I don't know," he swallowed then. "Wait! _Wait! _Down the barrel!"

"Yug?" Jou intervened. "The hell you up to?"

"Hey Hawkins!" Yugi cut. "What're my chances if we shot right down the barrel of the mouth into the electric pulse laser?"

"_What?_" She gave a spasm. "Like you'd get a chance before it fired on you!"

"Goddamn it I didn't ask for your forecast on-"

"Probably 15%" The voice of Ryou Bakura intervened tight and then reeled back softly; "it's not great but it's better than anything else I can think of."

"Atem?" Yugi whispered.

He swallowed audibly.

"Worth a shot," he murmured, "but if it takes us out everyone left is going to be…"

"Helpless," Yugi finished, "I know."

"Motou, Horakhty," Dartz next, "there's no way I'm letting you two-"

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-_Yug_-HUUUJKBFEVJKBE"

An ungodly white noise flare zinged, ear splitting like nails on a chalkboard, over the radio frequencies. To general air, out of nowhere, something cut over Heba's continuous stream of biblical prophesising. Atem cringed, Yugi buckled, on reflex at the way their eardrums rang before EX0D1A tried to mellow it out.

"Y-Yugi!"

_Cue squealing tires_.

Everything seemed to stop. Yugi couldn't move. He froze as beside him, panicking, Atem flailed to control the machine on his own. The screen flared up before Yugi's side of the cockpit HDs one little popup window the EX0D1A immediately enlarged.

It was cockpit feed.

"_Yami!_" Yugi panicked. It fell out.

"Sennen?" Atem baulked over his shoulder.

"Yugi…" He croaked, trying to assert his breathing over the frequency as a million other things conspired to flood him out.

"Isolate!" Yugi ordered the EX0D1A. He needed to hear him.

The Emperor looked dead already. He was bleeding from the eyes, the mouth, the nose, strapped into an electrified cockpit that was more wires than harness. Stuck, trapped,_ nonononono_-

"Yami…" _No don't cry yet_ Yugi ordered himself even as his voice strained. "The hell you doing?"

"It strapped me in for the ride," he croaked weakly forcing his good eye apart as the other closed round the blood. "Guess it thought it'd be fun to make me suffer a little longer."

"Sennen's here?" Jou gawked over.

"You need to get out," Yugi snapped heart pounding, "we're going to blow it sky high! I can't do that with you there!"

"Heh," Yami snorted hoarsely, "no eject. Sorry child."

"_Aww,"_ Heba laughed cutting through the sound, "_isn't he pathetic Motou? Come on pretty boy try and fire! I dare you Lastling! He can watch me kill you!"_

"Shut up!" Yugi bellowed but his voice broke into a screech. His eyes burned, his heart wrenched and screaming hard through the words that failed to be words any more Yugi curled in his restraints.

"Yugi, listen to me," Yami croaked over the feed, hands gripping hard as the console. "Yugi get under the torso and shot straight up. I think the armour's thinner there you can-"

"No!" Yugi hissed, shaking his head, "I can't! You'll die!"

"Better me than everyone else!" Yami heaved round the lump in his throat. He wheezed, hissed a little, and Yugi realized the Emperor was almost crying too. "I'm sorry Yugi, I'm so sorr-"

"Shut up!" He insisted. "Don't talk like that! I'm not doing it! I won't! I can't do that!"

"Yugi," Yami snapped. "That's an order! Take it out!"

"Since when do I follow orders!?" Yugi shrieked.

* * *

A couple of questions came up in reviews last week I thought I ought to share:

ZION STUFF  
1 Are Yugi and Atem related? No. They're not siblings or half siblings so no fear.  
How does that work?  
-Yugi's mother, the Paraxia-Pura (Yura), was impregnated during what was essentially a ceremonial/ritualistic one-night stand by a loyal follower whose only purpose was to get her knocked up and then fuck off.  
-Yugi was hers completely, the father surrendered all legal rights for the honour of fathering Yugi, and Yugi was her only heir.  
-The Pharaoh, Atem's father, was married to a queen. She had not political or religious authority (unlike Yura). She was only there to raise his son. She was not Yura but another woman of Zion. She was turned into a mind slave by Heba, though she resisted, and eventually driven mad Heba forced her to kill herself.  
-Pharaoh was a Zion Male and Paraxia-Pura a Zion female (though humans would consider both Zion genders male by their standards). They weren't married in most cases traditionally but they had completely equal power. They were the joint, supreme, authority. They had to agree on decisions but no one else could question their decisions once made.  
-Both genders had a state of egalitarianism.  
-Yugi and Atem were betrothed with the intent that they would rule in the same authority and style as their respective parents. When they had children it was expected their children would assume their positions and rule as, unmarried, brother and sister. Their children would marry strangers etc and a few generations later the family lines would marry back into each other again. It's a cycle.

2 What is the Zion Language? I know we have some European readers and I don't want to make an ass of their mother tongue. Some of the words I use are made up ("To Guard and Govern the Worthy"), some part Latin ("Paraxia-Pura"), some are mashed German (_Kriegsmaschine _="war machine") and the rest is Romanian ("Mic"). 'Zion' is actually an old Jewish term. I wanted something that sounded like it should be familiar but isn't any specific modern language to keep that mysticism.

**Next Time: **what goes up must come down. The question is who's left standing?


	30. Chapter 30

Okay, so, this week's chapter is hair shorter than usual but the next two chapters are _extra_ long. So I think you'll survive. Two more chapters until new fics!

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY

(Track- Glee "Smooth Criminal" Full Ver.)

Yugi spasmed in the harness, couldn't look, couldn't turn in on himself. There wasn't even enough space in his frantic, fucked up, broken mind to hide from this. There wasn't enough trauma in the world to repress the- he bit his lip too hard, his nose scrunched in, distorting in pain- _God no, please no, not that, anything but that, don't mak-_

"Yugi please," Atem cried over his shoulder, "it's going to destroy everything if we don't stop it."

"There has to be another way!"

"Yugi," Yami rasped, "_please_. I don't-" He spluttered half on tears, half on blood, "-I don't want to live like this anymore. Please, stop it, please, _please_."

Yugi's teeth came together hard, he drew in air and couldn't stop his vocal chords twisting in pain. No. _No_.

"Don't ask me to do that," he pleaded, "I can't…I can't…"

"For me," Yami pleaded, "for me Kiddo _please_-"

"Together," Atem promised, "we'll do it together. Come on, you can do this. Hold tight Sennen, okay? I'm going to blow this bitch sky high."

"Do it Horakhty."

"Where am I aiming?"

"Get under the main torso, right up, between the two main plates. You'll hit the core if you shot close enough. The armour can't joint totally over it."

"You sure?"

"I can see inside its mind," Yami panted, "I'm sure."

* * *

(Track- Meg/Dia "Monster" OR Owl City "Bombshell Blonde")

"Question!" someone gruff coughed up. "How you supposed to get in without that thing crushing you?"

"Hey Sennen," Horakhty murmured, "you think you can get it to hold still?"

Heba's laughter crackled through Yami's temples, purring over the radio waves genuinely infectious.

"I'm not dead yet." Yami strained, curling his thumbs in.

Heba scoffed, Atem Horakhty gave his battle cry and as Yami twisted his fingers in the gears of the Z0-RC lurched backwards, grinding, to an uncomfortable halt. The whole city sprawled beneath him through the screens from his eagle nest view and for once the ground seemed stationary.

Frozen.

Something in the water, in the spirit of the machine, twisted.

_Howdidhedothat?Stupidhumannonono!Shouldn'tknowhow! _

It came in a splurge and all at once all three hundred million of Heba's physic sensors were sharply refocused back on Yami like the wave of a split dam.

"Hate to tell you ugly," Yami rasped as he felt it coming, "but I'm pilot and you're a machine. You wanted to build a cockpit? Congrads I'm going to _ride your ass_ with it."

_Hiss_

Heba, the presence of him, was offended and twisting Yami could feel it looking to him for the first time. It was actually concerned or at least Yami guessed bec-

The wave hit; sonic, crunching, blinding, booming white noise hitting Yami's brain like a lightning bolt. The sound that escaped Yami's throat wasn't human anymore. _Don't let go! _All he had left screamed. _Don't let go! _He forced the brakes down, pulled the pedals back and in the middle of the storm held on by his teeth. No. No more.

Heba screamed, broke twenty octaves into a ringing noise Yami was sure would kill him and tightening every muscle in his legs and arms the cockpit temperature seemed to soar.

Atem's blip approached on radar.

The radio was going ballistic.

Yami's fingers were bursting into blisters, burning.

_I'llkillyoufilthyscumhowdareyouplaguepestilencedie diediedie!_

Yami grit, felt the blood down his cheeks. His teeth were going to break. The gears moved of their own accord around him as Heba, the ghost in the machine, tried to take back control to fight. Heba hadn't expected this, hadn't planned that part of Yami would survive long enough for this resistance and now… _panic_. Real, sheer, panic had exploded.

Horkahty, the EX0D1A, tunnelled through the rubble under them. Heba's HD feed was focused on its progress, tracking its impending distance to the core. The Republican army was firing hard at the gears of the legs trying to help Yami by breaking something tangibly in the tendons allowing the beast to step. They had a chance. If they took out the core the explosion would annihilate the machine and more importantly, Yami sensed, fry the AI hidden within. Heba would die.

The tug of war intensified. Yami was sure the force with which the throttle lever wanted to burst out from his fingers was going to break his hand. He could hear the gears groaning. Heba's noise was tumbling over to the radio in biblical fury. Scared.

Yami cringed, almost closed his eyes and felt his fingers twitter._ Nonono_-

"Nhmm!-"

A pained noise that wasn't his. His eyes flickered to the side of the screen.

Yugi's cockpit feed.

_Yugi_.

Struggling not to cry, struggling to move, tremulous, agonized… Yami could see it in the veins of his face, could see him watching, and suddenly the Emperor felt his hands strengthen.

_LETGO!_

Heba shrieked.

"In the name of Cyprus and the power invested in me by God above as its sovereign: _bite me!_"

Yami held. The cockpit _erupted_.

Every wire, every screen, everything exploded into electric fireworks. An electric shock show Heba was going to use to fry everything to try and burn Yami out. The sweat down his back was in torrents.

_**LETGO!**_

"No!" Yami swore eyes holding on Yugi's screen, the air above the water, the light through the pain. The only thing he had left. He was screaming. "I've spent my whole life bending over so the universe can fuck me in the ass! This is the last inch I'm ever going to take! I'm not going to get out of this but _I'll be damned if I don't bring your bitch ass down with me!"_

Everything in Heba, the human things or at least the comprehensible things, snapped clear off and the AI fell into primal, cold, howls. The sound filled everything, everyone, every signal.

* * *

(Track-Pirates of the Caribbean 3 "Up is Down")

Yugi couldn't look away. He couldn't even breathe. The EX0D1A filtered most of Heba's screaming but still it trailed in as echoes in everyone else's yelling as it filled their cockpits. Heba was clearing whole decibels as Yami actually managed to…

Atem spun them hard to the right, Yugi's body jerked, as the Republican dodged another downpour of rubble and speeding on the throttle pulled them in till nothing filled the vid screens but the vast interlocking belly of the Z0-RC right above them.

"Sennen hold on!" Atem prayed. "I'm there!"

Yugi's eyes flickered, already burning. Above them there was a seam in the plates, a gush of green-ivory light spinning out through the cracks; the core.

"EX0D1A active!" Atem hollered.

The prompt screen, gold and central shimmered into view. Yugi's heart swelled till it seemed like it would peel his chest open.

"_FINAL COMMAND SEQUENCE; OBLITERATE_._ Consent required._" The AI chimed.

Atem's hand flew, thoughtless, to the central control panel to push down. The prompt buzzed.

"_ERROR; complete consent required._"

"Damn it!" Atem swore. "Yugi!"

He couldn't move, Yami's face was still in front of him, if Yugi… if he gave up now then… Bile pushed up his throat, his pelvis tightened, eyes stung and every thought was too frantic for the EX0D1A to totally trace as it tried to translate in Atem's clarity and reluctance.

Lightning rippled, burning, across the sky as shrieking the Z0-RC fired the pulse laser uselessly. A pinned butterfly spasaming in place.

"Yugi," Atem whispered frantically over his shoulder, hand on the trigger. "Yugi the main blaster won't fire without both of us. Please. _Please_ Baby, I can't do this without you."

"I can't…" Yugi whimpered. His head shook without his conscious consent. "I-I just can't- I-"

"Little one."

Yugi blinked up, saw Yami's face, that horrible smile, that sad, bitter, smile…

"Please." Yami whispered. "You've got to survive this."

The Z0-RC shrieked. Fought and as Atem struggled to stay under it out of range of the weapons and the laser Yugi knew they only had moments before it flung them off and they lost their shot. Heba couldn't be held at bay indefinitely.

"I'm sorry…" Yugi simpered, shaking his head, unable to peel his eyes off Yami's face. "I'm _so sorry_…"

"Thank you." He smiled.

Yugi's hand fumbled out without much of his recognition, eyes locked with the Emperor, and beside him Atem found Yugi's hand, laced their fingers, and pulled his palm to the trigger with his own.

"_FINAL COMMAND SEQUENCE; OBLITERATE! ACTIVATED_"

The EX0D1A chimed.

Yami's lips moved, without sound, as the charge started. He mouthed, and Yugi forced his lips to motion back the same words through tears however sloppy.

'_I love you_'

No radio would pick it up, it wouldn't be in any national archive twenty years from now, but Yugi could see it on Yami's lips and the Emperor smiled enough to tell Yugi he saw it on his.

The Z0-RC shrieked.

The canon fired.

Heba screamed loud enough to deafen them all.

Yugi missed all of it. The beam slicing right up into the Z0-RC to shatter the core, the light, the sky erupting.

He watched Yami's face, eye to eye, till the heat melted the cam feed to death and the Emperor with it.

* * *

-P810378O4GRVI-**Z0-RC CORE TEMP REACHING**-UKQERO8GILBCO87O24OU-ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-_crackle_

-_I remember when I wa_-

-LGNVKULUO3083R-_psssft_-7HNKFEJSFVVHBNCOI4zzzzzzzz89472385607853YGUVNT,KJ BHO7V94-

_-I miss h_-

3KBJE084OHGNVKO7V;PI4LNKGURV;_-hnnn_-OH3.5TOFV9U853HLKBLKVUP97C31P'RGJIVSLO794O;

-_but finally I ca-_

IQLHGRKNUBPB964;O5QLHOV7P9508;OQ-**CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE**-K/BFVJHBELB00

_-die_-

LIH8OV9P8T;OQHQL.5GBRIU79[V08;OILH3.-**SYSTEM OVERL**-nJHBHHHHHHHZZZZ

-_Thank you_-

5QKBETAI789 P80;- _beepbeeeeep_-CPRI3LHJN5,KEHIU9-80V;OIL.3F5KJUHIE7Y-

* * *

(Track- Breaking Dawn "Cold")

…

Jou leant into his forearms as they rested on his knees, surrendering totally to the steel framed chair in the backspace of the Bohemian hangar. The silence, the air, felt too vast. His ears were still ringing from the heaven shattering sound of that…that _thing _…s-_screaming_.

It wouldn't focus in his mind. His fingers quaked against his elbows if he thought too hard about it. Yugi had just- Well Yugi and Horakhty technically- _saved the world_.

He rasped, his eyes stung and like a big baby, six feet deep, he thought he was going to cry for no reason.

The world had pulled apart to shit.

Excavation and Evacuation were trying to organize themselves in the city. Chaos was rife as what was left tried to calibrate the extent of the damage both here and in the Empire, back home, where Jou's sister might be… He swallowed and buried his nose in his arms.

Otogi's hand rested between his shoulder blades suddenly and the tension eased a decimal place. He couldn't fathom the effort of trying to organize all of that. It was like they'd survived Armageddon. What would the news say when they got the broadcasts back up? Would anyone ever know the story like he did? Would anyone believe it? He didn't envy Dartz, Pegasus or whoever was left in the Imperial Palace of Cyprus still breathing.

The insulated blanket some strangely buxom blonde doctor in heels had thrown round him rumpled. What was this supposed to help? Yeah, he was in shock, of course he was, but how was a blanket going to erase all th-that_ stuff _he'd seen today…?

The General, Ishtar or something, had pushed all the Knights into one of the remaining hangars and locked them all up tight after clearing a radiation scan. She said they needed to rest, immediately, rather than help with the clean-up. She was worried about them snapping. So in a dense isolated silence Jou, Otogi and Honda sat speechless across from Bakura, Malik and Odion. They were all together. It felt weirdly right, safe, even if the whole floor had come out from under them.

They were _alive_.

If Jou believe in a God then it was glorious and merciful today.

How could something like Heba even exist…?

Jou felt like he'd never know anything for sure ever again if something so nightmarish-bedtime-story could be really real.

"They've been in there a long time," Marik whispered sullenly.

Jou sniffed, croaky, and peaking over his shoulder spied the paint-perfect hunch of the golden EX0D1A locked up tight behind them.

"What do you expect us to do?" Honda shrugged, dead, exhausted, barely there.

"I don't know," Marik moaned in a tiny voice, digging his fingers through his scrappy hair. "What're supposed to do? Shouldn't we check on them?"

"They're our commanders." Bakura breathed still cradling the cell he'd called Ryou with. "Should we drag em out of there? That what you're saying Kid?"

"I'm not damaging that mech." Otogi threw his hands up in a useless flutter. "It's a work of explosive art."

"Sides," Jou ached in his posture, rubbing his arm futively. "You don't want me to drag Yugi out right now. If he doesn't want to come out best to leave him be. I don't think I could handle whatever he's like right now."

"Were…" Odion, the big one, held himself a little in his slouch eyes still milky. "Were he and the Emperor… close?"

No one seemed to want to answer.

"I…" Jou fell to the duty of fielding it. "I think."

What could you say?

Malik sniffed, squeezed himself; "so what, we're on the same side now?"

"After that?" Bakura breathed. "I sure as hell hope so."

"I can't do that again." Honda wheezed, eyes digging up the floor. "I don't think I…"

He ripped his hand up, burying his face in his palm and turning, still hunched into his knees, Jou rested his hand on Honda. Otogi's was still on Jou's back. Like they were all in some séance circle holding hands, brothers in arms.

"A medal isn't going to…" Bakura scoffed, couldn't finish the sentence. "_Fuck_…"

"You think he wants to talk…?" Otogi tried warily, tangent shifting.

Their eyes all met.

"I don't think locking yourself in a giant robot is code for I want to have a long in-depth discussion about my feelings," Bakura grunted, then; "no offense, seriously."

"It's okay," Otogi consented cordially. They were on the same page.

"I think they just need five minutes before the press is breathing down our necks." Malik whispered.

* * *

(Track- "Where is My Mind" Sucker Punch Ver)

The EX0D1A was thrumming still, soft tide songs, and harnesses dangling empty in the dark almost light Atemu felt the floor of the cockpit under his ass as the control panel pressed into his back.

Yugi didn't look…present.

On his knees, gazing into space, Yugi was statuesque in his stillness but the tingle of the machine's AI ghost between them was flushing all around Atem trying to be antiseptic to…

Pain, so much pain…

Yugi inhaled, eyes glazed over, like a little china doll and one knee slumping down Atem's throat coiled. He remembered.

He remembered his birth mother who had fallen to Heba early in the war and his birth father, the Pharaoh of Zion, not the adopted Horakhty family who had lied that he was theirs. He remembered Yugi; _button masher_, child of Paraxia-Pura Yura. They'd been betrothed by their parents… That instinct that something was wrong, that Yugi Motou had seen his whole world end once, that Atem was supposed to look after him, be his big brother, be there…_this_ had been sitting unconscious under that. Predestined or not Atem remembered everything gone and survived and every vein of love he'd ever felt trebled. Yugi who he adored was suddenly everything else as well, more than anyone else could ever be.

To Atem it was like his whole DNA had changed because, to him, it had today.

Yugi inhaled again, through his lips, barely. His shoulders quaked with the motion, he wavered, and Atem could feel the cusp of tears.

Silent as the grave he extended his hands, unfurling his arms unthinkingly, inviting or offering that maybe…

Yugi glanced, Atem was sure as he spotted Yugi's eyes that he could _feel_ a piano trill somehow not entirely possible, and lips pushing together as they fidgeted Yugi really seemed to see him.

He swallowed, Yugi did, and considering Atem his shoulders straightening like real Paraxia-Pura but then they fell and with them followed Yugi's chin. He stilled, fists clenching on his thighs and then-

Yugi hurled himself, scrambling. Atem locked his arms round him, clutched him like a flower in resin to his chest, burying his face in the imperial's thick hair. Sweat, salt, the smell of home and each other assaulted him and made him hold tighter as Yugi's nails dug almost through the Kevlar blend of his response suit into his shoulder blades. Yugi's weight paper pressed his legs in a clumsy tangle and inhaling for the third and final time in a quiver Yugi let go.

He _moaned_.

Shrieked up, stuttering into howling sobs, like he was going to wail till every god here and gone heard him.

He sounded so small then. So tiny, Yugi Motou didn't even look like himself, his head butting Atem's chest. Rather he looked…human? No, something…Something pure really, Atem wanted to keep it safe, he wanted to hold it. There was an impulse inside him to protect and kiss it better and… nonsense. Utter nonsense.

Atem let it be, strange as it was, and thumb brushing rubbed the same strokes his mother used to give along the small of the back into the other child.

He heard Yugi tremble up air, nails twitching, and on instinct if nothing else Atem fastened a fraction tighter allowing his chin to rest atop the other's fringe.

"It wasn't fair…" Yugi tried to explain, cut short by a staccato of sounds airy and watery escaping his throat.

"_Shhh,_" Atem squeezed. "It's okay."

"It's not fair…" he moaned, high and soft and brokenly keening. "It's not-it…"

Atem tightened, hands fumbling, trying to make himself stable as cleaving into him Yugi broke properly out into fully flourished sobs again. The world seemed to shift axis, reality spun, but Atem didn't consider pulling away during any wretched sound. He couldn't imagine it. Just the sound… the audible agony…

He ran his fingers through Yugi's hair, the other's arms directed to tangle round his neck, holding, stroking and rocking as he shushed condolences as best he could into one obscured temple.

"_Shh,_" he lulled, "_shh_…"

_We're still alive_.

Yugi was beyond words. Moaning really, thrumming out racked sobs into Atem's neck as the Republican squeezed him close. It didn't seem to help conversely that the tighter Atem held him the harder Yugi's hysterics became clinging to him.

_I'll never leave you again_.

* * *

(Track- "Renesmee's lullaby" OR Gem "It's Amazing")

Yugi couldn't quite space out the next three or four days sitting in the ruins waiting for the world to start spinning again. Eventually pieces started to come together: satellite showed Heba had destroyed more than just half the Bohemian capital during the trip over, they were still calibrating the exact extent of the devastation, but the Empire was in better condition than they had planned after discovering when communications came back up that Mahado had seized the helm.

Cyprus and Bohemia, Dartz and the Kaiba brothers (who Mahado had forced out on terms of a co-regency) had agreed to an immediate peace. It was over and they'd be sewing each other back together for years. They needed each other now more than they ever had before. It was an armistice born from mutual poverty. It didn't matter though. Death, rebirth, chances… Yugi had seen the planet recover from worse once before.

There were still crews trying to figure out the stability of the city, still fishing out survivors and helping overflowing hospitals. Pegasus suspected they'd have to detonate some of the still standing skyscrapers due to compromised foundational integrity about week later just as the news stations stated to come back on air. The media was choked, rising up reawakened, like a hungry beast.

Dartz decided a couple of them in particular needed to escape the sinking ship before interviewers were amassing on the embassy.

Agreements made, travel plans incognito, the Ishtars had said they'd take the Imperial Knights to the Rim. By that they meant the rim of the desert which cut through most of Bohemia passing over into Cyprus. From there they'd split asunder: the Ishtars back to rebuild a Siege under new international control as the centre of an alliance between two peaceful nations, Atem and his crew were supposed to take service leave in quite corners of the Republic, while Yugi and his Knights were to be handed to the Imperial Guard apparently for medals and detox therapy.

Yugi wasn't sure how much he trusted the Empire…

It was like he'd been drowning under a thick surface, blanket smothered, inside his own skin till sitting in the desert he regained consciousness. Fire light, netted flickers of sparks rising up to the sky, soft muddling background noise and the ripple of the EX0D1A just tracing is mind in the desert wind… Even out of it Yugi could feel the EX0D1A skirting the surface of his mind like a dragonfly but the sensation was much less pronounced when he was out of his response suits (which was rarely). It was gentle though, homely, and the AI had been trying to sedate him with endorphins so he could function. It was trying to lessen the shell shock and grief as best it could.

Yugi swallowed, distress crackling inside him like a yew, the sand slushed and conveniently;

"What are you thinking?"

Atem planted himself gently beside Yugi. The pitch skinned men further to their right laughed boisterously over him. They'd been joined in their journey through the harsh terrain by a transport of Bohemian nomads. A dark skinned ethnic minority of the country who were essentially the equivalent of Cyprus gypsies. Bakura was distantly related to them it seemed. They were a generous group, a family kin group of about forty, who danced every night by the fire and were bright spirited enough to sing all day while they travelled.

Jou, Akefia, the Ishtars, and even Atem had been pulled eagerly into the tribal grinding and clucking, laughing, of the dance. Yugi tucked at his hair and turned skyward. The stars were so impossibly bright out here in nowhere Yugi felt like he'd never seen them properly before.

"I…" He sighed hard through his nose. "I don't know where to go. There's not really anything waiting for me back in the Empire. I don't think I can step foot in the palace ever again."

Should Yugi run off into oblivion? Hide in the wilderness?

Atem crossed his legs leaning forward into his lap as he twisted his fingers together seemingly gentle by his very nature. Yugi had seen his mind from inside now and it was as noble, as passionate and as chivalrous as it seemed. Atem was true to the core.

"We're both basically orphans," the Bohemian shrugged, "the last of the Zion…"

His muscles flexed in his bare forearms as he squeezed his hands. Atem seemed to have an aversion to shirts if he didn't have to wear them. His tan seemed to darken every day highlighting his scar but it only made him look healthier.

"Hey," he whispered, "do you remember…?"

Yugi glanced coyly over his shoulder. They hadn't spoke about the rainforest near Luminesce Catch but this wasn't about that.

_Fiancé _

Yugi rolled the word over in his mouth. In another world, in another species, with different futures, parents they hardly remembered had promised them a path together. That path had included a great deal of glamour and few details concerning Yugi's suddenly very strange, alien and fertile, body. He hadn't really had time to think about it lately but…

"Yeah," Yugi murmured, hugging himself.

"I…" Atem ran his hand through his hair, sighing. "I'm sorry about what happened to Sennen. I don't want to be inappropriate, I don't want to disrespect those memories when I know they're precious, but I don't…"

"It's okay," Yugi drew his knees up, balancing his forearms over them as he mulled the words.

The Bohemian found enough old world courage to meet Yugi's eye.

"I still love you." He swore.

It took a moment. Jou laughed uproariously over the clapping of the dance but just outside the heated ring of the fireside Yugi and Atem were left in relative privacy. Yugi's heart freshened, as if withering and blooming in the same instant.

"I love you too."

It was just whispered but Atem smiled covertly.

"I'll wait," he promised, "and I'm here. If you need somewhere to rest then I'm going home and I remember telling you I'd take you back to my village once."

It wasn't really that long ago. The feeling hadn't faded it was just…everything, absolutely everything, had been obliterated by Heba and the ending of an epic. Yugi felt every bit the traitor. He felt different. Not the war legend, not the almost-human, something newer, grander and stranger.

"I want that." He murmured. "I don't want to fight anymore."

"Me neither."

"I…" Yugi inhaled, pushed towards the warmth, the light still fighting for hope inside him. Life went on, happiness could thrive. He just wanted to live outside his own legend. "My tent-"

"You can get married in Bohemia," Atem teased gently, leaning back into his palms with a consoling smile. He wouldn't do that. Not like this.

"You'd want me?"

"I love you." Why did he never hesitate to say that?

"I'm a murderer."

"You saw the end of a world and then you woke up in one that tortured you." Atem frowned. "You're a product of your upbringing but you rose above your raising. You're a hero. You did something no one else could and it means more than you think, then they think, _because_ you loved him."

"I…" Yugi sighed into his arms. "I don't know what he would've wanted me to do now. I don't know how much was him and how much was Heba sometimes. I don't know if he'd want me to mourn forever or…"

_'You should smile more._'

It cut, brutally, from the back of Yugi's mind and he realized a second too late he was erupting into tears hissing into his forearms. Why did this come out of nowhere? He'd cried enough for six people in the last four days. He sniffed into his thighs and firm but considerate Atem's hand settled between his shoulder blades.

'_You started this for you, I liked that._'

Yugi moaned, rattling, into himself and Atem's hand slid up and down his spine. The Bohemian wouldn't interrupt this. Not when Yugi could _hear_ Yami's voice from the depths of some inhuman place sequestered sacred inside him. Yugi didn't want that part of Sennen, the piece of the man he'd fallen in love with and that survived inside him to die. He wanted to flourish with it like some badge. He didn't want permission to be selfish and yet he did.

Yugi sniffed, brushing at his eyes, and shuffling half an inch closer in the sand Atem respectfully removed his hand but never wavered from that nonphysical support. He was here with Yugi to the bitter end. Did Atem understand what had happened? That it wasn't Yami's fault? If anyone could it would be him. If anyone could be the opposite of Yami it would be him. If anyone could heal the pain but respect the grave in Yugi's heart, the scar, then maybe…

"Tem-"

* * *

_Heba's Top True Themes:  
_"I want It All/We Will Rock You" Sucker Punch ver  
"Slut like You" Pink  
"Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" Little Shop Of Horrors  
"You Monsters" Portal 2

_Heba's Farewell:  
_"Want you Gone" Portal 2

_Mourning Songs to Move on With:  
_"One Foot In-front of the Other" Emilie Autumn  
"Goodnight Sweet Ladies" Emilie Autumn  
"Start Another Story" Emilie Autumn  
"Can you Hear the People Sing?" Les Mis original London cast

NOTES

1 _Why did Yami have to die?_ I decided Yami as going to die in chapter four. He's been doomed since the start. Unfortunately for me that was one of the only ways for Yami to really break his shell and become a realized hero in this universe. He faces dying at Heba's hands in chapter 28 and then, still alive, realizes that so far he's died for nothing, almost pathetically. He realizes that, inevitably we all die and the only thing he can do is face it the way he wants to in order to conquer it rather than be conquered. (This is what I get for doing a course on classical tragedy at university)

2 _Why did Yugi get to live?_ Yami needed to face his inevitable death but Yugi hasn't ever been afraid of dying during this story. Yugi is happy to die in chapter 4 because he's not living or planning for a future. He feels disconnected from the world, without a place, and he doesn't want to change that because it involves facing himself. Yugi had to learn to love, to care, to feel, to come interact with people and start actually taking charge of a world and a future for himself. He was never afraid of dying, he was afraid of living.

3 _The canon? _I've kind of been trying to move the characters to slowly become like their canon selves. Part of that is Yugi overcoming his insecurities and his loneliness to find friends and a bright future. Another part of that is Yami coming to understand himself, teaching Yugi what Yugi needs, protecting Yugi and then leaving to the afterlife. Finally we have Atem who arrives and, as Yami leaves, discovers he's king, fights the Z0-RC and gains all his memories. Those are just some of my takes, some of the ideas I was playing with, but it's all subjective.

4 _Would Yami want Yugi to be with Atem? _I really asked myself this chapter; if I died would I want the love of my life to be with someone else? Maybe have their kids instead of mine? Maybe marry them? Be part of their family? And… I decided yes. I would. I adore her. If I died I wouldn't ever want her to forget me and, most importantly, how much I loved her but I'd want her to be happy. I'd want her to have a life, to be loved, precious to someone, cared about and to be the wonderful mother I know she can be. I think Yami would be the same. True love is selfless.

5 _Who's better? Yami or Atem?_ Like I might've said in reviews to a few of you but I don't think either of them are better. I adore both of them desperately. It hurts to let Yami go. I think both of them have a true love with Yugi, neither one of them is better than the other this is just how the cards fall.

6 _What was all that JBERKJVBEKB stuff? _That, kids, is a hint for the last chapter~

**NEXT TIME**: the knights become a fully realized team, Heba's memory is buried once and for all, a new world starts and all because of a choice by Yugi and Atem who, finally, have a night together without worries or secrets…


	31. Chapter 31

Hey guys! This is probably up at a ridiculous hour but this chapter is_ massive_. Not cutting off in the middle of the action this time~ One more chapter and we're done! Savour it kids!

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Ishizu Ishtar III had quite a comfortable understanding with the nomads and their journey with them back to reclaim her home was smouldering along peaceful and victorious. There was still however something surreal about watching the Imperial Knights, who had been the scourge of Bohemian mothers' nightmares for years, laugh and play with her little brother. Something was stranger still about how hardly dressed Atem Horakhty came quietly up to her dragging his feet in the lush sand.

"Ma'am?" He murmured sinking into a crouch beside her.

"Yes Horakhty?" She held the canteen in her lap daintily. Fierce or not she was a woman.

"Ma'am you're sanctified under the old laws to conduct marriages aren't you?"

She hiked one fine eye brow up.

"Yes," she drawled carefully, "why?"

"Do you have twenty minutes to spare?" Atem begged gently.

* * *

(Track- Lindsey Sterling "Phantom of the Opera Medly" OR Big Bad Voodoo Daddy "Why Me")

"Jou, Honda, Otogi!"

The trio jolted to attention automatically when Yugi strode towards their cluster at one of the dozen little bonfires they and the nomads had helped established. Horakhty's boys beside them stiffened. Ryou had been passing out this weirdly herby hot chocolate Jou quite liked for the kick and Akefia Bakura, who wasn't actually so bad, had been gambling them all out of their fortunes into the night.

"What's up boss?" Otogi got in first.

"Need you three over with Ishtar and Horakhty." He cocked his thumb. "You lot better come as well. He wants you Ryou."

"What for?" the pale engineer rankled and beside him Akefia rather straightened.

"You lot aren't fighting again already are ya?" Malik supposed.

"Just get your asses up," Yugi ordered blandly, "come on."

The knights exchanged glances but loyal till the bitter end Jou was the first one up to trail dopily after his commanding officer. Otogi and Honda followed rather immediately but Atem's companions paused, wary, till quiet but assured Odion stood and bolstered a little by his bravery Malik followed. Bakura and Ryou had a moment, a glance, but pushing up the darker skinned, newly knighted, man offered his hand to the engineer as if to say that if anything went blisteringly wrong he would be there.

By the main bonfire Atem had his hands in his pockets and solemn looking General Ishtar didn't appear any more certain than the knights. Yugi took a spot in the sand, the nomads had briefly stopped dancing to cluck, twittering, watching and waiting for whatever fisticuff entertainment their guests might provide.

"Motou are you sober?" Were the first words out of Isizhu's mouth.

"Painfully," Yugi snorted.

"Hmm," she grumbled low in her throat glancing once more to a rather appealing Atem, before sighing. "Alright fine then; Motou on my left, Horakhty my right. What about the rest of them?"

"Jou get over here," Yugi ordered with cocking fingers.

"You too Ryou," Atem beckoned with a more open arm.

"The hell's going on?" Malik grunted stoutly hands in his pocket he rocked his heels and hips sceptically.

"Getting hitched," Atem answered plainly.

"To who?" Malik wheezed.

There was a glance, a general air, before the epiphany and all at once Bakura began to cackle.

"Seriously Yug?" Jou blinked.

"Yeah, now shut up. You want to be my best man or not?"

"Hell yeah!" He bolstered suddenly, excited. "Really?"

"Technically you all count," Yugi dismissed with a wave of his hand, "I'm not picking favourites."

The men had to grin, Otogi even laughed, there was something unspoken in that. Yugi didn't need to pick favourites he'd already made them his favourites, his companions, those loyal men he relied on and this only solidified and proved it. They were tickled rather pink with themselves it was plain. As for Atem's men they seemed transfixed, bemused, all bar Akefia who appeared to think the whole idea was hilariously brilliant.

"You crazy fucker," he saluted Horakhty, prodding at Ryou. "Go on then Babe."

"Atem are you sure about this?" Ryou mumbled slinking in close to stand by his side.

Gloriously golden in the firelight Atem smiled, that smile, that little burst of radiance that tickled up to his eyes and sullenly uneasy Ryou had to falter a little in surrender.

"Alright," General Ishtar sighed, throwing her hands up. "We are gathered here today to join these two men in holy matrimony, for some _inane_ reason not disclosed, so before we begin if anyone knows of any reason why these two should not be wed please take a number and get in line."

Otogi snickered, they all almost did, and twittering the nomads seemed to have realized what was going on as they shuffled closer. The women came round behind Isizhu, babes on hips and grinning wickedly the men including the dread locked, potbellied, chief were clearly enjoying themselves.

Atem reached, perhaps a little self-consciously to try and tangle, lace, Yugi's fingers with his and uncaring, unperturbed, the Imperial took the step in closer instead to sling his arms sloppily round the man's shoulders. Atem smiled, the nomads said something in a tongue neither of them understood but in almost catcalling unison, and as the Republican's arms folded snug round his middle Yugi had to smile between their noses.

Ishizu sighed.

"Yugi Motou do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband to supposedly love and cherish through sickness, health and attempted murder for as long as you both shall live without achieving one of the previous three?"

"Something like that." Yugi snorted, grinning.

Atem's nose brushed his, their foreheads half slumped together. Both of them, in fact _all_ of the party, were underdressed, tired, un-showered and sloppy under the moonlight.

"Atem Horakhty do you, you great ridiculous romantic, take this psycho to be your lawfully wedded husband to love and cherish through sickness, health and attempted murder for as long as _you_ shall live before he puts you in a wooden box and sends you to your maker early?"

There was a moment, the pair of them lost in eye contact.

"Horakhty," Ishizu snapped.

"Wha?" Atem startled. "Yeah! Always! Right, sorry."

He laughed, Yugi smacked his shoulder eyes rolling back, and unable to help himself at Atem's side Ryou laughed shrilly but sweetly. The nomads snickered. Sand pushed, boggy, between their feet and locked on each other once again Atem couldn't seem to contain that dopey look trying to etch itself onto his face. Yugi could feel Yami's dog-tags on his clavicle, tepid with his own temperate heat, the Emperor's decades old jacket still tied snug round his waist under Atem's arms. Atem who was alive, virile, sweet and strong and who was perhaps the only one who could love Yugi just as much or better than Yami Sennen in his absence…

"Alright," Ishizu snorted, "what about rings?"

"Uh," Atem hummed, glancing away. "I sort of don't have any?"

She groaned.

"Malik."

"Yeah Sis?" He twigged.

"Go to my bag and get Mother's old wooden box will you? Make it quick now."

"Kay!"

"The Ishtar family have had the same set of wedding rings, passed down, for generations." Ishizu explained with a shrug, "You can have them."

"What?" Atem blinked. "Oh no, Ma'am I couldn't-"

"After my parents?" Ishizu snorted. "I don't want them. Besides this seems like as good an omen as any to spend them on."

"If…if you're sure," Atem faltered. "Thanks."

Malik pushed back through the clustered, amassed, nomads watching them and skidding up behind his sister thrust the box into her hands. Dark wood, well vanished, she rifled through it for a moment before beckoning. Holding out one hand to her Atem took the plain gold circlets with one arm still slung round Yugi. Simple and engraved in a language neither of them knew there was something naturally transfixing about them. Yugi stole one from Atem to hold in his palm as Republican slid the smaller onto Yugi's more fitting fingers. They barely took a step away from each other, hands moving between their chests to slide them on, and then Yugi folded his arms back into place round those strong shoulders. Fingers lulling he grasped the wrist of one of his hands with the fingers of the other.

"Good," militaristic as always Ishizu nodded curtly and taking one final look over her shoulder to the nomads, to them, to their congregation stalled for a second as if she couldn't believe she was about to say it… "Then by the power invested in me by the Bohemian Government I-" half a rumpled snort escaped in a sigh, "-you can kiss. Make it quick."

Atem grinned, winked, and with a squeeze hefted Yugi off onto his tiptoes. Yugi surged a little, felt right in a way that half put him back together without ever impacting, hurting or brushing where Yami sat, hulking, inside him as a tumorous bunch of tangled memories. He dug his fingers into Atem's hair, clutching his shoulder blades, and forgetting to breathe let their lips smash together for a moment in front of everyone. No secrets.

The nomads gave a cry, laughed and boisterously saluted. Yugi could hear Jou and Bakura wolf whistling, a stuttering good hearted clap, but all he was aware of was Atem's smell, his lips, present flesh and tight knots of butterflies inside his belly. Sand on the Republican's bare back ghosted under his fingers, Atem's solid chest held against his like a raft, and wet, sweet, everything was blissfully alright for a second.

Atem laughed, half breathless, and easing let Yugi slump a little back down till the Imperials heels touched the sand. Yugi's fingers dragged over Atem's cheeks and lips all parted in a pant they were so tightly laced it was hard to tell if they'd stopped kissing.

"Alright, alright," Ishizu chuckled tiredly trying to lull down all the chorusing. "Get a tent Horakhty."

"No! No!" The big, sweaty, nomad chief called good humouredly to them. "Must dance! Celebrate!"

Atem was brilliant, Yugi's heart gave another flutter and tugging at his wrist one of the tall black men, almost nude, compelled and appealed at the pair of them to dance. In a calamitous clutter the nomads resumed the hand smacking, half fluted and half whistled music of earlier in the evening.

"They are so not going to believe this when we get home!" Honda snorted loudly back over Yugi's shoulder.

* * *

(Track- Lindsey Sterling "Celtic Carol")

Bakura who had a bit of everything in his blood helped the dark skinned desert folk herd Yugi and Atem back to the fire to dance. In the blur Yugi lost track of almost everything. Heat, dust, sweat, spinning round the fire till he was dizzy…

Why was he doing this? Why _not?_ Did he care what they thought? _Ha!_

The women kept snatching him, laughing, at odd points to paint something baby blue and thick over the backs of Yugi's hands and his cheeks. They yanked down his top to reach his clavicle and his shoulder blades and wrenched it up to cover the small of his back before trying to paint from his mid thighs down. When they swirled their fingers, the only paint brushes in sight, on his knees he kicked out ticklish.

The whole thing happened in stages because the women would only manage to grab him to plaster a section on his skin before Atem found him again. In the spinning Atem would hook Yugi over his shoulder and the Bohemian would steal him back. The women, the men, all laughed easily at it. Yugi had no idea what any of it meant and when Atem shouted over the out pouring clamour of shouting, clapping, whistling and fluting he confessed he didn't know either.

The Bohemian would fasten both hands snug at Yugi's waist and with a heavy push, grunting, would lift Yugi almost over his head when they turned. Atem's dancing smudged the paint when it was wet but it dried fast and after that the blue wouldn't budge even as Yugi sweated. It prickled, only flaky at the uppermost layer.

Jou howled at the moon like a fool, Bakura found the liquor, Malik could be heard laughing, Ryou got dragged this way and that, till Yugi caught glimpses of all their faces even plied up against Atem. The whole air had changed, the atmosphere exploded, and all at once Yugi nearly felt like he was a totally different person. They'd let go. They'd started to breath again.

This was nothing like the prim grandeur of the Empire, nothing like the Ancient splendour of the Zions that had borne them, nothing like either world Yugi was supposed to belong to and nothing like any marriage Yugi would've had in those settings.

It was good. He clutched the Bohemian, felt the forested, wild, rapture he associated with when they were alone in the wilderness and realized he was smiling as he smacked his fingers against Atem's skin to clap along with the beat. He could feel Yami, taste him, almost hear Sennen, _his_ Sennen, laughing and warm deep inside his gut somewhere where a piece of his heart hid all bloomed and safe.

This was how Yugi could uphold Yami's memory. This was how he made sure Heba didn't win in death. Heba had killed too many things, too many people, to let the death hang over them in such a way that even gone the monster was still here over Yugi's shoulder. If he was alive, if he laughed, then Yami was alive. If he was happy then Heba had lost. If he didn't let that monster rule their lives then Yami's soul was safe where it still survived in this world. It was a ridiculous epiphany, something drunk and rapturous, but cheek on Atem's clavicle he realized he was sort of smiling and crying glassily at the same time.

Yami would want him to be happy. Right…?

The dawn was starting to break. Yugi's head pounded, his whole body ached, throat tight, chest bursting and eyes wet when light started to creep up on them. Atem panted, glorious between two shades of gold, glowing and sheened with sweat as the healthiest specimen of masculinity Yugi had ever seen. All his, in the open, and realizing it Yugi had to rub his thumbs over both of Atem's cheekbones.

Everyone was starting to fall to sleep, to curl up on the earth or slink into tents, and trying to gather his breath he let Atem drag them given the man was too tired to carry anything.

"Horakhty," Odion swept past them something small in his hands, "here, for you."

"Huh?" Atem took it, holding it up in the light.

It was dyed, coarse thread but interwoven soft ribbon, tiny little beaded purple baubles dangling intermingled. In that moment it seemed beautiful.

"Thanks Buddy," Atem laughed, "what is it?"

"Good luck charm, sort of," that deep voice of his shrugged modestly. "It's an old world gypsy custom for good futures and happy children and all that."

"Heh," he smiled. "Thanks mate!"

Atem's hand slipped out of Yugi's to grab the much taller man in one of the ultra-masculine back patting hugs republican males were known for. Atem turned, presented it to Yugi and unable to not laugh Yugi tried in vain to lop it twice round his wrist but found that, overtired, his fingers shook when he tried to seal the clasp. Odion took the ends from his fingers and sealed it round his wrist with such a dainty touch Yugi couldn't imagine how it belonged to such a big man. Were all Bohemian country boys so gentle? His eyes met Odion's dark, deep, set for a second and it was so strange to touch people he'd only ever known in combat that Yugi didn't know what to do.

* * *

(Track 1- Lindsey Sterling "River Flows in You")

Atem made an attempt to carry him over the threshold into the tent but shoving at his navel Yugi pushed him off his feet onto his back in the sand and laughing, snorting, darted under the folds of the tent before the Bohemian shook himself of the dust as gave chase. There was half a growl, entirely playful, as Yugi collapsed on the bedroll and Atem clamoured down onto his hands and knees after him. One knee found itself between Yugi's thighs to steady the man as he slumped down on his elbows. Yugi's tugging hands gathered him close and curling his arms round those salty shoulders he caught Atem's top lip with his.

There was a sigh, one of Atem's forearms curled above Yugi's head, and then for a tiny slew of contacted moments their lips melded to purr softly.

That done Atem slumped to his side, arms tangling under Yugi's neck and round his hips. Shuffling to make himself fit closer Yugi slung one bare, painted blue, knee over Atem's hip as his fingers played between the Bohemian's shoulder blades.

Yugi didn't think he could quite explain the smile, the softness or the glow that seemed to exude and envelope round them as exhausted they lay face to face.

"You happy?" Atem whispered.

Yugi remembered Yami asking him that and the answer hadn't changed.

"Yeah," he said a little easier. "You?"

"You got no idea." Given Atem's twinkle Yugi was sure he didn't.

Atem squeezed him close, inhaled, and that thick rainforest scent hadn't gotten any weaker over the months. It was Ancient, Yugi knew that now, all fertile and messy and mated snug when they folded up like this. Call it pheromones.

"So, your village next?" Yugi suggested yawning openly into his neck.

"Ahuh," Atem concurred, "Turtle Village. I can't wait to be home."

"Heh," Yugi squeezed his shoulder blades.

"What do these even mean?" The man laughed, leaning up onto the elbow under Yugi's neck to trace some of the stuck tight blue paint etched over him.

"I haven't got a bloody clue," he snorted, "I can't understand a word of whatever they were saying."

"It's pretty." Atem slumped back down next to him.

"I don't think this is quire how our parents pictured it."

"Definitely not," he agreed slackening beside Yugi, "it would've been a mega state wedding. Broadcast, a million people, lots of nonsense and ornaments…"

"I'd be a virgin." Yugi snorted.

"Me too," Atem chuckled.

"Do you think they'd be proud?"

"We're alive," Atem whispered fingers playing over the rounded edge of Yugi's shoulder. "I think they'd be ecstatic."

Yugi calf and arm tightened simultaneously round the Bohemian. His, out in the open, partners, glorious life, futures, spirits, desert suns and goodness, safety, new homes… he breathed. Yami was still on him, in the jacket and the tags; the only menial things imbued with him Yugi would carry into the dawn. Heba wasn't going to take everything, not that anyway, not the sweet mornings and the safe nights and the perfect kisses he'd shared with Yami. Not Atem, not Yugi, not a million other lives he'd saved even if Yugi hadn't been able to…he pursed his lips.

He was _so_ sorry. He'd always be sorry. He should've saved Yami, not the other way round. Yami shouldn't have had to die a secret hero. Yugi shouldn't have had to spend his whole life remembering those last horrible seconds watching Yami mouth words at the cockpit cam before the light obliterated everything.

He was going to stop crying, Yugi told himself, Heba wasn't going to win.

Atem seemed to know how to wait, to read his breathing, and when Yugi raised his chin from the groove of Atem's neck it only took a little stroke at the Bohemian's jaw to have the man lower his lips into reach. Yugi tugged, by his shoulder blade and with his own calf, to roll them dragging the bigger body over his.

Atem rested into his elbows to save Yugi from some of the brunt of the weight and soft as ever kissed him in that impossible way only Atem Horakhty could. Gently till, a little embarrassed, the Bohemian glanced down to him uncertainly colouring pink on the cheekbones Yugi was compelled to trace.

"Hey, do you remember that…with the…" Atem fumbled. "I mean, the Ancients weren't like humans right…? I mean…you know…"

"I know," Yugi snorted amusedly, "the Ancients had two genders but different to humans. Right? I remember. My mother was…_ hmm_." That still kind of bothered Yugi, made him a little uncertain about everything just as much as it explained a dozen things.

"So you…?" Atem deepened the shade of blush warming his cheeks and smiling broke into an awkward laugh. "Sorry…"

"You can knock me up yeah." The Imperial shrugged unabashedly brazen. The concept was sticky still, weirdly right but fucked up. "After Luminesce Catch I think I'm fertile. Belatedly maybe, or not, I don't know how long Ancients are meant to live for."

"If we…" Atem hummed a little. "I better…"

"Pfft," Yugi chortled. "What? Doesn't the farmer's boy was a big family?"

"What? No! Of course!" Atem blinked. "Just figured you…"

Yugi paused, frowned, and considered it. What the hell did he want? Honestly he wasn't used to having so much choice. He hadn't expected realistically to live past twenty-five but now things had changed. Would he be an international hero now? The Underground was dead, Yugi was safe, Heba was destroyed, and a whole bunch of allies had his back like Atem Horakhty leaning over him. He could do whatever he wanted.

Did he want kids? He'd never seen it as an option actually. He was twenty, almost twenty-one, it wasn't like he had to decide right now or take the chance. He was young. There were other ways but... Besides it was…

On one level, inside him, it made sense to him because it was how he vaguely remembered the only mother he'd ever known. On another, more contaminated and human level, it was morbidly fascinating and disgusting. The human in him thought it was retarded but Atem didn't make him feel feminized and the Zion waking up in him thought…

What the fuck did Yugi care about what other people thought anyway? What the fuck did Yugi care about what was disgusting after all the fucked up shit humans had put him through? What did _he_ want for once in his goddamn life?

It niggled, uncomfortable to him, but…

Atem waited, mild and patient as Yugi sighed. Yugi loved this stupid dumbass. Yugi could, maybe, imagine something… something not so bad, something _wonderful_ even. In a way ideas of heritage, species pride and reclaiming his destiny assaulted him but they were all rather muted under the idea of Atem and how he smiled when their eyes met.

Maybe then, maybe it was worth just letting… It was a chance, it didn't mean that…Yugi wouldn't necessarily…but if he did;

"It might be nice," Yugi whispered up at him finally, "little piece of you growing inside me, a future."

Atem's eyes seemed to darken instead of his cheeks and while his smile softened it didn't lose the volume of radiance that made it special.

"Whenever you want," Atem promised kissing, almost licking, at the plush of Yugi's cheek.

"Now feels good." He tightened his calf round the man's hips.

Atem laughed.

"Seriously," he snorted. "I'll wait. It doesn't matter."

"I am being serious," Yugi squeezed at his shoulders deftly, "I think it's the paint or something but now feels right. It feels good. I just want to hold you properly, finally, be one or something gay like that I don't know…"

"And if…?"

"Then you knock me up," Yugi shrugged, trying not to colour. He didn't want to use the same vocabulary he'd used with Yami even if it was easier because using the kind of words that felt right with Atem made him nearly redden. "Now feels kind of… I don't know, I try not to believe in destiny or all that shit."

"I do," Atem whispered. "That's why I'm asking. It's superstitious and silly but I feel like if we do it now then you'll…_well._"

"You'll pussyfoot round some more?" Yugi snorted teasingly and the Bohemian laughed. "Yeah Captain Dumbass, by some weird mystical sixth sense, I predict if we fuck like rabbits right now without a rubber you'll knock me up. We've already had the shot gun wedding what the fuck are you worried about?"

Atem couldn't stop laughing then, burying his face in Yugi's nape as the pilot smacked at his back.

"_What?_" He pealed.

"I love it when you sound like you," Atem laughed, such a farm boy fool at heart.

"Heh," Yugi found himself smiling weakly, eyes fluttering shut.

For a second he gave up to the wave and just enjoyed it. Atem's body warm on his, that soft chuckling laugh against the column of his neck, the feel of those smiling lips. He savoured this.

"So," he teased, sighing as he opened his eyes once more the folded canvas of the tent overhead. "Do I have to win another war before we fuck or…?"

"No," Atem chuckled, back on his elbows with a fresh smile. "Let's…?"

"You are so corny sometimes." Yugi's hand rose to trace over his scar. "No, scratch that; _all_ the time." So why was he smiling?

Atem tossed to his side, seemed insistent on that angle, so Yugi followed and was squeezed in response. Lips meeting wet and soppy and stupid Yugi dragged his nails through fistfuls of the other pilot's hair. Atem held tighter, was clumsy enough to be all hands and not seem to know his own strength. Yugi liked it. It was kind somehow even if it was fumbling, young, and for the thousandth time with the other Yugi felt acutely his age.

Yugi tightened the cock of his leg, tried to grind languidly into the man, one arm tracing nails senselessly down Atem's bare spine as the other hand rifled through his hair still. Atem squeezed his hip, other arm crossed round Yugi's back, and as the fingers roved Yugi expected the Bohemian to shot for his arse not under his shirt over the small of his back.

It was slow, damp, young and messy in the best way.

Atem's palm was ruddy against his back and his lips kept that tender dragging pace against Yugi's. This was heaven. This was home, Yugi thought, as he rubbed his thumb into Atem's cheek and the bone of his jaw because he felt he could do this for another thirty or forty years pretty comfortably.

It was a dumb thought, he laughed airlessly and Atem exploited the gap to kiss his forehead, his nose, his cheek, almost his ear… because the Bohemian couldn't seem to decide where to go first or how. He wanted, he longed, and it was the passion mingled with pure affection that Yugi found nearly unfamiliar. Yami was like this, sort of, but older, more composed and skilful, less wild stallion trying to buck. Yami was more veiled about this but Atem's heart was so on his sleeve Yugi felt like he could feel every thump of it.

Atem nuzzled down to his lips. Yugi pushed his malleable tongue past Atem's and grunting through his nose like a lion the Bohemia held him fast. Yugi very nearly laughed, messed the whole thing up, but Atem's tongue curled round his and then drove back into his mouth. He pulled softer purrs for the darker man. How did Atem so tan? He hadn't been so dark skinned when they were tiny.

Just the fact Yugi remembered when they were tiny, remembered a mother that used to tuck him in…

Yugi smoothed his palm down the man's bare clavicle, felt the paint itching on his own skin, and was aware of the warmth of Atem's belly snug along his. He was solid. Yugi might've been toned to wires but Atem was raw built muscle. Atem could throw him, Yugi was sure, even if he wasn't a big stocky man. Not that he ever would, the silly thing… Yugi's palm flattened, leg loosened, putting some gait into his hips and rocking in the kiss...

Atem gave another rasp, like a dopey predator from the savannah, and shoved onto his back on the bedroll blinked momentarily up at Yugi. Now comfortably sitting atop him Yugi stripped his own shirt overhead. As Yugi unlaced the jacket, Yami's jacket, fastened round his hips he was very aware of the Bohemian's eyes on him, practically sparkling, but he somehow sensed if he didn't strip Atem wasn't about to rip his clothes off. Great fool was probably happy to kiss all through the dawn. Atem's sighed, cooed nearly, blowing appreciatively up through his fringe with the thickest look in those wild rural eyes. Dusty, calloused, hands ran down his sides as Yugi's shoulders and arms lowered and Atem could not have looked happier as Yugi sat comfortably astride him.

"Strip," Yugi lilted the syllables, plucking at the waistband of the pilot's hips but he still couldn't stop that stupid smile trying to eat his cheeks.

"But…" Atem whined his hands running across his navel, over Yugi's hips, as his eyes followed. "Can't I enjoy this for a second?"

"Pft," Yugi huffed at his fringe.

Collapsing onto his elbows over the Bohemian, he allowed Atem to lift his shoulders up for an eager kiss. Then with a little space between them Yugi watched Atem's glance and let him run worn palms along Yugi's spine with that smile that just tugged up the edges of his lips like a string.

"You've got a lot of scars." Atem was so haphazard with those words of his that for a second Yugi shrunk, self-conscious, till; "they're handsome."

"What?" He frowned amusedly. "No they're not."

"They're all little," the farm boy stroked his sides, eyes roving. "It's like…they suit you. You know those gem stones that have all those little flecks in them to catch the light? It's like that."

"_Pft!_" Yugi turned his mouth into his shoulder, shoving the Bohemian's clavicle to lay the man down. "You're hopeless."

"I mean it!" Atem cawed. "Sides, look," he was very proud when we took Yugi's fingers in his and dragged them down the well-defined contortions of his own chest, "I've got plenty."

Yugi blinked. He'd never really noticed them consciously, recognition had shot right over his head because Atem's face was too distracting but, just like him, the republican had a slew of marks running over him. Yugi sat on his hunches, startled by himself, and found the tips of his fingers tracing the long, thin, marks as he marvelled how Atem's pelt could be so spotlessly dark all over. Such a strong chest…

"I got that one from you," Atem pointed along his ribs, "and that one, and that one, and my eye obviously…"

He laughed. They might as well have been love bites. Yugi found himself breathing though a pluck of amusement in the back of his own throat. This was discovery.

"Oh!" Atem sat up into one elbow and pulled up the hem of his pants on one leg.

He'd kicked his boots off and as he exposed his calf he contorted himself in such a way that his mouth came close to Yugi's clavicle as the smaller glanced half round his shoulder to look. Yugi found his arm supporting Atem's shoulders.

"Now see that one," Atem pulled up the pant leg to expose the long fading mark up his calf, Yugi still sitting in his lap. "That's from when I was fourteen and I fell off a tractor. I used to sleep on them under the sun like a big fat lizard."

Yugi couldn't stop the next belt of laughter despite himself and the sound seemed to make Atem light up. Yugi felt _better_. He grinned, glancing one last second over the mar then to Atem's close nose, and pushing forced the Republican back roughly.

"_Oomph!_"

Yugi sunk after Atem's floundering, diving for the kill, and grasping, cupping, at both dimpled cheeks curled his fingertips into the man's hair for a bruising kiss. It wasn't angry, the charge wasn't sexual, rather to Yugi's surprise he was happy and after a falter of trying to catch himself Atem's arms slung tight round him palm resting on the back of Yugi's neck as if Atem was holding him by the scruff some baby animal.

Atem's sounds rolled drawing from his belly, guttural and naturalistic but when they parted for a second, still sharing breath, he was all hopeless, corny, romantic again.

"I… I want you so bad," he chuckled brokenly hand squeezing Yugi's scruff as he nuzzled up for approval. "I don't think- I mean not with anyone I've ever…I don't know. What was I trying to say?"

"You're _really_ bad at this," Yugi snickered.

"Yeah," Atem lay, still smiling boisterously. "Sorry."

Yugi wanted to say something dirty but it died on his tongue because he was too busy laughing at the stupid oaf. He was a bizarre prince. So instead Yugi sat, hair thick and rumpled, and with Atem's hand on the small of his bac-

Yugi stopped for half a second. Lips parted of their own violation but didn't make a sound. Arse settling and eyes darkening he found, curiously, how Atem grit his own teeth as their eyes met.

_Hard_.

The imperial sighed in a whoosh between his lips and flexing his thighs, his knees, astride the man Yugi felt acutely how hard Atem was. Tented in his pants the other's cock was pushing against the seam along the curves of Yugi's arse that rolled down into Atem just to feel it the arousal. Atem hissed quietly, Yugi shut his eyes and satisfied the pilot found, mouth almost against his own shoulder, that he already liked the feel of the other's body nearby.

Yugi took Atem's hand, the one not on the small of his back because he liked how supportive that one felt paper weighted in place, and rested it on his navel. Horakhty's fingers curled and expanded roving tenderly upward till Yugi had to bend forward to bring more into reach. Atem's fingers skipped to his neck, to rub the back of it and scrape Yugi's cheek with his thumb, smiling, before he felt downwards.

A calloused thumb ran over Yugi's expectant, pebbled, nipple and grasping his knees slightly the Imperial felt his shoulders bunch.

"_Hm_."

Atem sighed, tweaking the bud between two fingers and then, unable to help himself, withdrew his hand to use it instead to lean onto. Half sitting underneath Yugi the man, warrior, kissed it.

"_Ha_…" Yugi let his eyes flutter shut, slouched, head back.

Atem's tongue scarped the skin, circled, before both lips fastened round the nub to suck for a flicker. Wet, present, Atem's teeth ran briefly over the skin and then the Bohemian was switching sides to suckle the twin.

God…

Atem nipped, Yugi gasped but then laughed bringing his fingers to fist through the man's thick hair as the other teased his tongue over the hardened tips. A slew of tiny noises escaped, growling amusedly, as Atem worked to suck, teeth scrapping, over the nape of Yugi's neck till eventually the man suckled an earlobe between his lips, tongue darting out wetly behind the cartilage.

(Track 2- Howl's Moving Castle "Merry Go Round of Life-Music Box")

The strain of supporting himself became a more pronounced in Atem's elbow as he stole a kiss and had to return to lying down. Yugi's smile pulled his lip over his canines more than the centre of his mouth, something of a kink, and content but breathless Atem focused on straying both hands next over his hips. He had permission, Yugi was nothing if not inviting.

Ah, God, Yugi was going to chew this guy up and spit him out and just…

He laughed stupidly.

"What?" Atem blinked.

"You look so dopey," Yugi grinned, "you've got this big ass grin on his face."

"Heh, yeah," the Bohemian shrugged uselessly underneath him.

"Real articulate too, aren't you?"

Yugi ground his hips back, dragging against Atem's pelvis and-

"_Hnn_."

Atem's head went back. That image, that contented pleasure, made Yugi sag to murmur sighing and glowing. He leant, he kissed, Atem's hands petted along his back and into his hair. A sigh, a moan, a little rock into him from Atem's hips…

"Want you," Yugi whispered. "I want you Atem Horakhty. Right now."

_"Hmm_…" Atem sighed, couldn't quite manage a word for a moment so he kissed him harder.

Yugi bit the bottom lip, licked him, and sucking the last of the kiss pushed him by his shoulders into the bedroll though Atem struggled lightly.

Yugi slipped off him, to one side, and pulling his knees to his chest hooked his thumbs gracelessly in the elastic of the borrowed shorts the Republic had gifted them after the Imperial Knights arrived bag-less in the capital. Atem lifted his hips, fumbled with his own hemline and kicking the shorts off from round his ankles Yugi grunted onto his knees towards the bags.

"Tell me you've got some fuckin' lube?" He prayed.

"Uh…" Atem grunted, struggling with the buttons of his pant. "Um, try the grey one? I think there's-u_m_-like, med gel or somethin'?"

God they sounded so dirty bumpkin right now. Yugi would've never had this conversation with anyone else and now, on his bare scrawny knees, fumbled in the grey satchel as his hair fell forward into his face. He pushed it aside, Atem's pants slid audibly free of his calves and rolling onto his stomach the Bohemian reached towards foraging Yugi.  
_  
Smack_.

Yugi's air caught, on reflex, in his throat and throwing his head back over his shoulder gave a dishevelled little gape at the now beaming Bohemian. Yugi's ass tingled, Atem's hand lulled above his head as he rested on his stomach and slapping the man's fingers Yugi grunted.

"Cheeky mother fucker," he grumbled under his breath. He couldn't stop himself laughing though when he turned to resume searching the bag. "Argh, stupid- _Where?_"

"Here," Atem offered, shambling onto his knees.

His warm, naked, weight came up behind Yugi and one arm looped snug round the Imperial's waist hugging him back into Atem's chest. Horakhty's chin slumped over his shoulder and reaching round the man fumbled through the clothes, maps, canteens and pain killers as Yugi allowed himself to rest back into him.

Snug skin to skin Yugi was placated by the weight on his belly as the sand gritted his calves.

Atem found it finally, gave a little cry of victory into Yugi's shoulder and laughing twisted his mouth down to kiss with a heft backwards. Snorting Yugi unwrapped his legs to shuffle after him.

"_Hmm,_" Yugi found himself turning, found Atem's legs crossing, found himself straddling the Bohemian's lap and kissing his cheeks as the darker preened turning his face into it.

Atem's hand rested at his hip, rubbed his back lazily as Yugi sat astride him and leaning into it all Yugi's arms tangled round his neck. Sweet man, good man, lovely hubby… Yugi was all purrs.

"Can you sit in my lap?" Atem mumbled against his nose.

"I am in your lap," Yugi teased.

"No, I mean…" Atem grinned, glanced to his bellybutton then his nose. "Can we do it like this?"

"Heh," the Imperial sighed, "yeah, sure. Not a doggie style guy?"

"No, it's all pretty good with me," he mumbled, "just this time I…well…"

"What?" Yugi pressed, investigating with a sudden curiosity.

"I don't know," Atem shrugged.

"Yeah you do you corny ass," Yugi squeezed his shoulders, forcing his face up by the cheeks with cupping palms. "_What?_"

"It's you," Atem admitted, "and the first time I get you I just… I want to be able to hug you and see your face and kiss n'…" he mumbled off.

Yugi's stomach seemed to aerate with spontaneous, swooning, butterflies. He did _not_ blush. Slumping under the urge to embrace the Bohemian all over again Yugi closed his eyes.

"Like the sound of that?" Atem murmured, ever so playful, perhaps hopeful.

"Yeah," Yugi confessed, "I do."

"I'm glad."

Nothing but sincerity and if Atem had his way Yugi would be in a ball somewhere fucking cooing and swooning soon. Apparently it was Yugi's solemn duty to dirty this shit up. His fingers curled a little in Atem's hair, along the line of his neck, and settling upon his knees over the Bohemian's lap Yugi drew his attention.

"Touch me," he ordered in a hot hush, "now?"

Atem met his eyes, Yugi's fingers tight in his hair, and half fluttered through another tight nervous, aroused, chuckle.

Atem's fingers slipped to convene at the small of Yugi's back, medical gel forced out and with a kind of shadowed awareness Yugi felt Atem vaguely rub his slickened fingers together before…

Yugi sighed, butted their foreheads, relaxed.

Atem's digits slid slickly down the cleft. Between them their aching cocks couldn't quite meet at the right angle as Yugi's thumbs worked over the Bohemian's shoulders. Yugi almost tensed with an awareness, an anticipation, of what came-

"_Ohn_," Yugi caught the sound trying to roll off his tongue.

Atem Horakhty's fingers, sticky with fluid, scrapped over his clenched entrance.

That came first, that idea, that it was _Atem_. Yugi whole mind seemed more focused on the man than the action and he tensed as Atem made a sharp intake in his own fascination. The Bohemian suddenly seemed a little harder at the flutter of Yugi's breath, his fingers resting there, cock leaking pre-cum almost against Yugi's navel. Actually, speaking of that cock, someone was a _big_ _boy_ with thick dark curls…

Atem's eyes seemed to check his and Yugi couldn't look away but the intimacy of it almost heated his cheeks. He wasn't usually so exposed… Well, unless of course he was locked in any private moment with Atem where he always seemed exposed in at least one way.

Atem's eyes fell, darted down, and glassy the Bohemian circled. Yugi's grip flexed, his hips arched back and with a sigh the Bohemian seemed thoroughly satisfied. Fucking unintentional fucking tease monger….

"Go on," Yugi rasped half-harsh, "do it."

Atem's chest expanded under his fingers, desire and nerves and need, and pressing hesitantly made Yugi rumble low within his throat as the tip of one calloused finger dipped inside for the first time. Yugi grit his teeth, subconsciously, and his hips motioned back into the press. Atem sighed, grasped his waist and, letting himself give into the urge finally, slipped_ deeper_.

Yugi managed the first part of a purr as Atem entrenched one narrow digit all the way inside him. The Bohemian's thighs felt bow tight underneath him.

"Jesus what're you a virgin?" Yugi managed, hot in the face, hazy, very aware of slick, present, intrusion he rather _loved_.

"No," Atem grunted, voice caught on gravel. "But it's _you_…"

The finger flexed, out just a smidge to arch back in and Yugi groaned. _Yesyespleasecheque_. Yugi's hand fell down between them, fingers running in ghost of a touch along his own cock but he didn't think he'd need the stimulation. The idea of Atem seemed enough.

Stroking…

Yugi leant his hips back, found skilled purchase to rock on his knees over Atem, and moaning coarsely the Bohemian seemed to have finally found how to think with his cock. Two fingertips pried, mindlessly eager, at parting Yugi and in a stuttering stroke inward Atem stretched him rather unnecessarily as Yugi pressed into the touch. This was just the warm up. Seriously Yugi could fuck dry at this point. The virginal days, the dry spell before Yami, were _long_ gone.

"Hmm," Yugi had this bubble in his stomach of knowing everything was okay. It seemed to change the light in the tent. "_More._"

"Hn, yeah?" Atem moaned, apparently in possession of a very active imagination.

"Oh…" Yugi let his lips part, leant down, three fingers hilted inside him slowly… "_n'_ want you."

"_God_ I want you too," the soldier repeated, reruns rolling with emphasis as he kissed Yugi's shoulder and pressed his waist, fingers curling inside. He liked that, Yugi could tell, Atem Horakhty was all gone almost from the sheer privilege of fingering him.

Sure knew how to make a guy feel special didn't he? Fucking Bohemians. Yugi was sure Horakhty's inner monologue was currently a laugh track and a slew of overjoyed stutters.

Yugi pulled himself up fractionally on the digits, took a panting breath and steady on his knees found himself nose to nose with the farm boy as Atem looked to him.

"What?" The pilot seemed to consider he'd done something wrong with that gentle face.

"You," Yugi ordered vaguely, "_now._"

Atem understood and glazed.

The med gel was fished up from beside them Atem's fingers began to withdraw when Yugi snatched the gel. He popped the cap with his teeth, which seemed to fascinate Atem and leaning into the other's bone structure Yugi squeezed the almost unsavoury stuff onto his fingers. His hand fell, Atem visibly tensed, and smoothing his fingers Yugi lathered the gel down the darkened cock.

_Hmmm…_

Pre-cum mingled across his skin as Yugi eased from the head down the shaft.

Atem groaned, strained, pained.

Yugi should've teased more, would've, but there was something so satisfying about that sound tumbling out of the Republican that he found his hand trailing back up and down the skin soothingly. Atem purred, contorted the note, and closing his eyes into his shoulder Yugi found himself distracted by the feeling of the arousal aching in his fingers.

"_Hnn,_" Atem grunted. His teeth broke apart to sigh eventually. "Shit…"

The tension and release in his voice was just stunning. Yugi flexed his grip. Atem's hands found his hips still damp and thumbs pushing added a little pressure to the bones.

(Track 3- "Aries Theme- Music Box")

Yugi licked the corner of his top lip, sweaty, and with the right spread of the knees, the right jut of the hips and a little rub to reposition the blunt tip of Atem's cock…

"_Nhhaa_…"

The Bohemian had a set of subtle, deep, pipes Yugi _loved_. Atem's fingers tightened on his hips, drew him down, and purring Yugi sunk.

"Oh," he managed sour and tingling as he slid his knees out from under him down onto Atem's length.

Girth, spread, slick- Yugi grit his teeth over his bottom lip, loved the stretch and shifting awkwardly managed to rearrange himself to wrap his legs round the Bohemian's middle sitting in his cross-legged lap.

In, full, sated Yugi slumped into him but Atem seemed razor stiff.

"_Fuck._" Atem's teeth didn't want to let the word escape as Yugi caught his breath.

It wasn't so much that Atem was unreasonably big or even exceptionally impressive but, laying into him, Yugi was satisfactorily filled to the brim. Perfectly snug heat, body warmth, sweaty. The desert intensified the smog of smut and the sand accentuated the sensitivity of Yugi's toes. _Perfect_.

"God…" Atem eased slightly, hands sliding over Yugi's rump. He seemed to sag, shoulders released, and slumping the Bohemian peppered Yugi's temple as the Imperial rested.

"Hmm," Yugi murmured a chorused agreement.

"You're awesome." The white knight managed sloppily. He recovered however when he added with total sincerity; _"I love you._"

Yugi smiled into his neck, tingling.

Sighing, arms crossing round Atem's back, Yugi motioned with his hips while he squeezed with his calves. In effect the motion ground him into the Bohemian's pelvis, thrust the firm cock inside him and moaning Atem's hands backed up Yugi's motion as he pulled the smaller body closer onto his member.

It was a position, Yugi found, that while he was supported, held, he had such total control to move however the hell he wanted. Meanwhile, actually, Atem had enough control to direct with just the same level of control.

_God_.

"I love you," Atem rambled again, "I love you so much."

Yugi tightened, clenched, and purring his eyes stung vaguely.

"I love you too," he promised.

A compulsion hit and suddenly Yugi was hungry, his mouth turned and nipping found Atem's.

Yugi palmed his hands through the man's hair, thick and soft, mashing their lips together in a way that was toothless and too sweet. It made his insides curdle, melted ice cream and_ safesafesafe_… Whether it was because Atem was like him, finally someone of the same species, that Yugi's instincts unhinged or just because he was Atem Horakhty the kindest, grandest, man to ever walk the earth he wasn't sure. There was a kinetic flow between them. Yugi knew him, trusted him, loved…In love, true love, bad words…

His arm wrapped, slung, round Atem's shoulders the palm of the opposing hand tracing the stubble of his strong jaw line. They were the last ones, the last Paraxia-Pura and the last Pharaoh of Zion, promised and reunited in a way that was too symmetrical and mythic and perfect for Yugi to believe it could be so clean. It was so almost divinely ordained that it was wrong and a muddled kind of perfect simultaneously. Yugi wasn't used to being part of something seemingly sanctified by fate. He felt clean.

Atem's lips were so human, though that hardly made sense, but the folds of skin and the way their bodies brushed was primeval, prehistoric. The mix of religious and ancient was magic. They kissed still, flowed through it, pattering through breathless tiny smiles and half lidded glances and-

"Oh…" Yugi purred, fingers carding through Atem's sweaty hair gently, arm tightening round his shoulder.

Atem had grasped the undersides of his thighs, almost at the curve of his arse, and in those calloused hands that sat trapped between the bend of Atem's crossed legs and Yugi's thighs…Yugi's legs flexed to squeeze and there was synchronicity. Atem pulled him closer, Yugi rocked, and neither one really had the control in the tug of war that lacked force. Atem murmured, moaning, and Yugi smashed his lips into his forehead as straightening his back he tightened the fingers tangled in the other's locks.

The rocking undulated them nearly thrusting Atem's blisteringly hard arousal inside, into, Yugi. They folded and fell. Yugi purred into his gritty forehead, Atem panted by his neck, and, cake batter almost, Yugi rocked with the motions. Little ships at sea… Yugi held on and Atem…_ God_… the Bohemian was thick, consuming, inside him and Yugi felt him most as he ground down and rubbed the skin where Atem's cock stretched Yugi open. There was something… Yugi could smell sea salt, thought of mermaids and he didn't know why…

There was the stranger awareness, that he shouldn't have been comfortable with, that he and Atem were together, perfectly, joined. No, not even that, the idea that they might not be the last anymore soon. Yugi tiptoed around the thought he realized.

They were joined and the grind of Atem inside him, rubbing just an inch so… his cock never really had to leave Yugi and molten hot in the desert they could simply stay fused longer with Yugi stroking his cheeks. There wasn't a right word. This wasn't _being taken_ this was splicing in together, making love, and Yugi was beginning to think there was no other way, no cleaner way, to be with Atem. This was fulfilling and Yugi wanted to be filled. The words rolled over each other but thighs slippery Yugi wanted Atem to…

"Hna…" Yugi moaned, recovering his breath as Atem pulled their hips flush together settling himself inside Yugi to the hilt languidly. "I want to feel you cum inside me."

He whispered and Atem moaned. He sounded pained and weak at the very idea. Yugi wanted it though. His body was flush to the Bohemian's sun kissed skin that ground against his arousal trapped between them. _Fuck, air, need air…_

There was a thought that wouldn't meld but Yugi was insistent, however roundabout, that he admit it to himself internally.

He loved the satisfaction of Atem's erection between his thighs as he held himself upon the stallion of a man. He wanted Atem to cum, wanted to hear that moan as handsome as everything else about the Bohemian because along with loving him Yugi… hmm… _Come on_. Yugi admitted he wanted that infectious, settling, fertile… _Fuck, argh,_ Yugi wanted to have his child.

_Fuck_. He half hated himself half shuddered fingertips sliding down Atem's slick back rippling with toned tendons. He shouldn't have wanted that. It was so arcane but he _did_. Was that stupid? Maybe, argh, he… Seed, young, nesting, warm bellies and heirs and his- Oh fuck his_ husband_. None of the thoughts would digest or dissolve. It was like Yugi could feel them all in his pores.

Atem kissed the curve of his shoulder, neck, sloppily nuzzling the cradle as the man's arms wrapped up Yugi's back so he could cling to the imperial. Atem held fast to Yugi but not bruising like as if he was a boy or he might die without Yugi.

"Aaah…" Yugi rocked, ground down into the thickness, legs finding tight purchase round Atem's hips. Hmm syrupy skin, sighs, lovers pecks… "_Pharaoh._"

The word fell out. Atem nuzzled, held him cloyingly, so blisteringly in love Yugi was sure he could feel it like a fever seeping into the epidermis of his own skin. Yugi's heart swelled uncomfortably in his chest in a way that seemed to constrict his lungs. The word was old, funny, not from this century but close behind it;

"Atem," he swooned, making the Bohemian moan boisterously as Yugi petted his hair and rolled his hips with half a gasp. "_Atemu._"

That was the Zion pronunciation.

Atem mumbled brokenly, kissed up his jaw, hand fastening on the back of Yugi's neck to pull him down ever so tenderly for a proper, wet, kiss all petal soft and inexact. Atem loved him so goddamn much it was rolling off him, radiating off him, in waves. The sun.

"_Dragoste,_" it rumbled out of Atem with vowel articulation Yugi didn't ever remember hearing and it wasn't from any language current to earth. Zion. "_Copil_…"

Yugi sighed, then laughed, and hugged him like a parasite tangled round the man. It tumbled out, their language, their home tongue, the words only two living people currently knew and Yugi was amazed how much the mind could remember.

His lips pressed to Atem's then found his ear, sighing into it, holding.

"_Una, dulce_," Yugi babbled in a sigh, "_Atemu…"_

Yugi was sure that somewhere, under the dirt of the surface, he'd remembered Atem Horakhty last Pharaoh of Zion. He'd missed home somewhere however unconsciously. He had longed for this kind of understanding that, unfairly, couldn't be matched by something more human while Yugi was adrift. It wasn't even the genetics it was those memories; they'd both seen it, both seen the entire world turn to molten lead and ash as an entire planet had been decimated. Yugi recalled species that were all extinct, cities, languages, people, their families… No one could share that much devastation but something four million years old survived between them.

"_Atemu…" _

The Zion pronunciation was hardly different but the sound was more rolling and less clipped than the way rough Bohemians like Akefia said it.

"God, I love you," was Atem going to cry?

Yugi unlaced his ankles, pushed delicately at Atem's arms, and laying himself back half beckoned, half pulled, the Bohemian down onto him. As Yugi straightened his legs, to change their position in the languid process, Atem had to move and readjust himself. He withdrew from Yugi carefully even though the other's body arched, clenched, after him with rising hips and flexing muscles. Unfolding his own legs he got to his knees between Yugi's, came onto his hands and knees, and was going to re-align to thrust back in till Yugi's hands slid up his arms and pulled the Bohemian down to kiss.

Another pillow kiss, Yugi's arms petting sweetly, Atem settling his calescent body heat between Yugi's legs to rub their hips and their viciously hard arousals together. As they pecked Atem rocked a little.

"Hn-ah…" Atem sighed between lips.

Yugi gave a breathy whimper. It was an itch, a wound, almost because _fuck_ rocking felt so good they could almost gooily get trapped like this but disengaging, untangling more like, from another kiss Yugi settled his hand on Atem's clavicle.

"Inside," he ordered weakly, "I want to cum with you inside me."

"Right," Atem laughed, but lost the sound in a shuddering rumble of the throat. He was close, just the idea was breaking him, his cock was stiff and dripping between their bellies and Yugi…

_God_

Atem sat back between his thighs and Yugi let him go. The light caught, in Yugi's vision, reflecting off the ring he'd hardly noticed on his hand as he slumped it by his head. It looked good when he curled his fingers into a fist, sort of sung; '_let me punch someone'_ with that sparkle. It wasn't really feminine in any grand way sort of non-descript really but he found he liked it in a second of distraction. It was his now. Weird…

Atem leant, Yugi's knees drew up and his hips wanted to follow as the republican steadied himself with one hand on Yugi's hip, aligning the tip of his arousal against the imperial's entrance with the other. Yugi inhaled, whooshed air out in a pant, and fingers clenched ground his teeth together with a strained moan as Atem worked back inside him bottoming out to the hilt. Amazing. It happened so fluidly, easily, he had the man inside him and he ached to keep it that way. Hot, malleable, the whole sensation of Atem's cock mingled between his legs.

"_Ha_…" Yugi adjusted.

Atem's hand glided under Yugi's thigh, marring beads of sweat, to push one knee slowly up to kiss the smaller pilot's chest effectively opening him further.

"Oah…" A sigh, Yugi's nails dug into his palms, lips wouldn't shut. How did Atem's cock get away with feeling so amazing? Atem bumped his hips. "N'_ah!_"

Yugi hiccupped with the thrust and when Atemu's hips hit, moulding, into his the Bohemian somehow sunk impossibly deeper. Perfect. Atem panted once, almost had air stuck in his throat behind his lust, and craned over Yugi looked nearly pained. So close.

Leanly muscled, tanned, in a lion hunch Atem was…

God he was _so sweet_.

Yugi ached. Had anyone ever loved him this much? This well? Yes, Yami had. Still the civil war inside ruptured a little because his inner child felt like it was growing up.

Yugi bent at the back, shoulders in the bed roll, arching up and thrusting staccato with that bone splittingly hard arousal Atem pulled them through the last motions of the dance. Ancient union, just the way it should be and just the way Yugi pictured it would be for another forty years.

Yugi's toes curled. He clenched to accentuate the feel, to make Atem moan and hear it chorus round him as sun beat through the mesh of the tent. He could smell them, fertile and pungent, could feel the paint almost melted against his skin, dripping down his cheeks, and had that wave of sensation; _he loves you, he's always going to love you_, Yugi's mind started singing soft nonsense. _Here's here, he'll stay with you, he's coming, he's cumming inside you_-

Atem moaned sinking to the hilt and sounds splintering Yugi _felt it_.

"Gha-uh!" Yugi fists dug back, twisting, in the bed roll and almost pushed his arching off the ground.

He trembled, Atem purred, the man's hips lurched without ever removing the last Pharaoh from his seat within Yugi and let the pilot's contortions milk the last of his seed. Complexity, complete, fused, there and here and together and finally and…

Yugi fell back panting, short huffs, heart hammering and Atem couldn't seem to move. Over sensitive the Bohemian moaned, almost pained, like a bull still managing to hold Yugi's thighs apart beautifully while the pilot shuddered. Every little motion, every tiny flex, still made them hiss and it felt like it might be forever before Yugi could calm against the swell enough to let Atem slip out without clenching on reflex and hiccupping.

He was going to feel cum down his thighs all day.

Yugi turned his face into his palm, exhausted, and felt the band of the ring against his nose. It was comforting. Atem leant, stiff, too stiff to withdraw yet from where he was sheathed and gently kissed Yugi's cheek thrice before resting to nuzzle his face their while he caught his own breath.

* * *

1 _Why the happy?_ _That seems like a rushed decision!_ It is. Yugi is making another one of his grand spur of the moment choices just like he did when he first jumped Yami. It's what he does. Also Yugi knows that bad shit happens but if you stay miserable, if you don't laugh, then that bad shit owns you. It's won. If Yugi lets himself be miserable forever then those good parts of Yami? They die and Heba wins. Yugi won't let that happen. If he's happy with Atem then everyone can know it.

2 _Translations? _Yugi and Atem are babbling there in Romanian. It's nothing complicated just things like _sweet, love_, etc mainly because I'm not going to try full sentences on Google translator and slaughter someone's home tongue!

**NEXT TIME:** Jou says goodbye, Turtle Village receives new residents, Siege City a new purpose, Heba reveals his true form and Yura, the sixty-seventh Paraxia-Pura of Zion, gets the last word.

**NEW FICS**: So, in a fortnight we start a new story! I've been asking around on tumblr and I'd like to ask a few questions here.  
1 would you guys like me to keep doing track suggestions in the new stories?  
2 in my next AU "_In the East_" I'd actually like to make Yugi a woman. Atemu would still be male. Would that bother anyone or do you guys trust me to give you a bit if het~?  
3 There's a chance I could start updating two new stories. By that I mean you'd get fortnightly updates for "_In the East_" but during the in-between week I'd update a second story. How do you guys feel about that?


	32. Chapter 32

So, last chapter! Important info about new fics down at the bottom but before then… _Jesus_. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed the whole way through, or some of the way, or who's just read the whole way through. This has been a tonne of fun and I'm sad to end it but I think this is the ending it needed. This chapter clocks in at a little over 13 pages. Please enjoy.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

(Track- Howl's Moving Castle "The Merry Go Round of Life")

There was no time to sleep. They dazed in the afterglow, sticky and soaked in sweat, warmth in the pit of Yugi's belly while they tangled. They only had a drifting fifteen minutes before General Ishtar started calling outside demanding they rise. They had a camp to pack, a journey home to make and a brief vacation to earn before business as usual. Breathing deeply into Yugi's hair, Atem had been half asleep and sluggish in the act of rising. It all came slowly, squeezing in each other's arms, groggily finding their feet, trying to dress…Normalcy.

They both realized what the paint was for when, trying to find something to wipe it the last of it off with, Yugi and Atem had been subject to a general clamour of native wolf whistling from the male and female nomads. The thick, gritty, substance had turned almost to jelly with the sweat of their coupling ruining the swirls to nothing but wet tracks dripping down Yugi's skin. The pilot realized it was some sort of _'spot the consummated marriage_' custom. He guessed in a society of gypsies without sheets you needed some way to prove the groom had gotten lucky. Yugi snorted, Atem pawed at his neck bashfully and on his knees helped Yugi scrub at what was left rubbing carefully at the back of his thighs.

They ended up in the same transport as Bakura and Ryou. Something of a canvas covered jeep with a set of trailers on the back to carry the EX0D1A, the EY-3 and Bakura's testing mech. Strictly speaking they shouldn't have had the military equipment coming home with them to their private lives but procedure had gotten a little shot in the foot. Both governments were shambling and here in the desert was, Yugi guessed, inevitably more peaceful than in the wreckage of both capital cities.

They heard on the radio that Mahado had helped the Kaiba brothers ascend the throne, forced and option-less, before making an immediate offer for peace and assistance to the Republic. The whole world was shell shocked but if nothing else Dartz and Mahado had both nations desperately trying to recover from their gaping wounds together.

Yugi had no intention of going back to the Empire yet. Perhaps he wouldn't for years. Till the press circus died off he'd hide in Turtle Village with Atem (before he and Atem started _another_ circus that was).

That however was about all the thought Yugi could organize, shamble together, before Atem fell asleep beside him in the back seat of the sturdy vehicle. The bohemian snored, raspy with that baritone, and as sandy air blasted through the windowless sides of the vehicle Yugi found himself lulling into the man's side cheek slumping on his shoulder.

Yugi realized three things before he fell asleep that made the whole action possible;

He had friends. Now those included Atem's friends. He had a network of people, a family (though he thought it hesitantly), who would and could help. He had the Knights, Mahado he sensed too and Mana and they wouldn't toss him in a lab or throw him in a prison for treason. Not now, not when they still depended on him. So the future was an open, unpredicted, book. Yugi had never had that kind of expanse before him. He had never been able to count on the fact that he had people behind him and years before him.

He realized secondly that…He may never be done grieving for Yami Sennen. That would take more years than Yugi felt he had left (he hardly felt twenty, nearly twenty-one, more like forty). Yugi loved him still and inevitably always would. Yugi had failed to save him and perhaps failed to make it clear to the world Yami Sennen died a hero not a monster. The only thing he could think to do, though he still wondered if it was selfish, was to try and be happy. He hoped that Yami would want that, that that would somehow defeat Heba's ghost from ruining Yami's memory or last moments on earth. Yugi knew now, today, as he closed his eyes that those last seconds of Yami's face would never be anything but blistering in his mind.

Thirdly, finally, Yugi knew he had Atem. In a weird way he had always had Atem backing him up, promised and waiting. Without memories the Bohemian had sensed their shared turmoil and scars. Atem would never leave him, never give up on him, could love him dirty and nasty and be sweet as honey. Atem was a good man, warm against him and softly secure. Yugi probably didn't deserve to love him. They had honesty though, trust, peace and a weird kind of love that in an inkling felt as golden as everything else about Atem. It would be okay as long as the farmer boy was around. Yugi would be okay. He knew too, or pretended to because really it was just a sense, that they'd conceived something. If Yugi didn't have some child in his belly the universe would feel incomplete in its great arching desire to make Atem's life legendary.

Did the republican know he did this? Know the whole universe seemed to condense into something too mythic to be real around him? Atem couldn't seem to realistically exist. He was too archetypal, fairy-tale, but then again Yugi was a living, indestructible, nightmare so perhaps Atem was just the natural counter. Either way Atem's life would read, and should probably, like a fable.

Heh, Yugi would be okay.

Yugi would never forget.

It was simultaneously both. He would know who he kissed goodnight for the next forty years but he would never forget whose dog-tags he was never going to take off and whose jacket he would wear until it split at the seams. Yami was never going to die in his heart and Yugi would never leave Atem's side after today.

Full circle?

* * *

(Track- Mozart "Greensleeves")

It was too hot for their suits or their normal boots. So with stolen sneakers in one hand, in hand-me-down clothes, Yugi and Jou waded in the sticky sand as the water rushed back sucking towards the tide. The trailers had stopped to refill gas, to get everyone a meal and let the children empty their bladders. Atem was still stretching in the back of the truck, helping Akefia, and in a dart to cool their legs, unneeded, the Imperial pair had headed for the water to enjoy the few hours they would hug the coast.

The water whooshed forward to hit Yugi's knees with a crash and in the sand there were stacks of shells. This wasn't a commercial beach, there weren't many anyway given most of the continent was a war zone rather than a set of tourist options. Or it had been a war zone till a week ago…

"What are you going to do?" Jou prodded.

"Going to hide in the Republic for a little while, go deep rural, with Horakhty. I've got dual citizenship now. The Kaibas can't force me to come back. After that…" he shrugged, "I don't know." Yugi had a life ahead of him. Marriage.

"Is that why you and Horakhty went shotgun?" The blonde laughed, hands shoved sloppily in his pockets as Yugi's swung free form by his side. "Escape plan F eh?"

"No," Yugi shook his head gently. "Not really."

"You like him?" Jou didn't seem to know what was more believable. It was funny that he questioned this. The blonde had never questioned Yugi about being a non-human, about the lab, about anything. In the end he hadn't changed a millimetre. A steadfast dog.

Yugi pursed his lips, hummed strictly but it fell into something of a stupid laughing sound a second later before tumbling finally into a sentence.

"Yeah," he confessed, "I think I love him."

"Is it cause he's… ya know?" The blonde shrugged, brushing at his neck. "I mean, Hell, I don't expect you to do anything anymore cause crap knows trying to predict you's like fucking meteorology but…" He chuckled, couldn't quite say the word.

"We're the last of Zion," Yugi nodded, "but… it's not that."

He stopped in the sand, caught the view of the horizon. Jou became steady beside him standing into the lean of one hip but still very tall.

"Well okay Boss," he consented amicably, "so long as you're happy it's all cool with us."

"Heh," Yugi tried not to smile but was sincere; "thanks Jou. You're going back the the Empire?"

The journey was roundabout but they'd pass the border eventually and Mahado would be waiting no doubt.

"Yeah, I'll keep you updated, scope out the situation." He nodded seriously. "Guys and I can let you know if you've got enough friends to come out of hiding or something, sound good?"

"Perfect," Yugi hadn't expected that much but the Knights always surprised him; perpetually these days. They were bonded strangely but… "What about your sister?"

"I haven't heard yet," Jou sighed. "I don't have anything she can contact cause we ran without our stuff and the news is shoddy cause they're all still trying to figure out what the fuck just happened, in Cyprus too, so I don't know. I'm just going to have to go home and see."

"You scared?"

"Shit tonnes," he slouched. "Just got to hope she's okay. She was under for a long time though and after the Emperor…"

They seemed to sigh together. The jacket round Yugi's waist felt heavier.

"You okay about Sennen?" Jou asked gently.

"I miss him," Yugi preluded solemnly but diverted. "Listen, good luck, okay? If…" It felt weird to try and say something that attempted comfort but it felt real, honest, in Yugi's heart. "If anything happens you've still got all of us."

Jou…

Jou smiled, shimmering a little in the eyes but as tough as ever threw one dirty arm round Yugi's shoulders even if he was mildly cautious about it.

"Thanks Boss," he murmured, "I know you get it. I'm sorry we couldn't help Sennen. I know that Heba stuff hurt him real bad in the head… I… We're family now though, right? You, me and the guys. Always, kay? So if ya need anything we'll back each other up."

"Always," Yugi promised, he wanted that just like he wanted it with Atem. "Brothers in arms."

He held up his ringed fist and grinning Jou bumped his against it so they could both pretend to be macho.

* * *

(Track- "Maybe" Annie 1999 version)

Yugi was accustomed to five am starts. They were a kind of equivalent universal. In the Empire kings woke at dawn in ceremonial garb for ministry meetings. In the Republic, in the rural depth of Bohemia, farmers roused with the sun to tend crops and cattle. Yugi had fallen from one extreme to the other. From thousand thread count, embroidered, coverlets in the palaces of Cyprus he'd changed hands to wake in a bed with a frame three generations old. Dirt lingered in gritty flecks between the stiff well-worn sheets under blankets hand sewn by mothers and daughters who'd slept here before him.

Atem settled on the edge of the lumpy mattress, which ached against the small of Yugi's back, and through misted thin dawn light pulled his boots from under the bed. The sun was coiling through the open shudders. Yugi could hear the grass rustling, smell the seeds and the rain on the breeze drifting in to the stagnant bedroom and just behind him Atem pulled up those thick leather boots which thumped on the wooden floor uproariously.

Sound travelled heavy and strong through the cottage, which in itself was just a few shambled rooms round a universal fire place, but Yugi still couldn't quite hear Grandfather Sugoroku snoring. Yugi pulled his wrists to his nose as Atem's shuffling dislodged the blankets and as he rose to rifle through the creaking drawers of the chunky old dresser Yugi nuzzled his own forearms. The woven bracelet chocolaty Odion had secured for him from the nomads on the journey here brushed his nose, thread coarse but interwoven ribbon soft, tiny little beaded purple baubles dangling off it nudging him. It wasn't the prettiest thing but it was stronger, Yugi had found, than most of the jewellery his inheritance had secured him from the Empire (he'd scored most of Yami's private effects in the hastily written will they'd found as well). The bracelet was meant to protect futures and families. So, naturally, he wasn't taking it off now.

Atem's boots thudded too loud to ignore and mumbling with bed warmth Yugi draped himself in the other direction wrapping himself in a nest of blankets. The dresser draw slid shut, boots clopped, and the first little twinkling bird chirped out the open windows. All in a tiny, tiny, village where everyone knew everyone else intimately and no one had locked their doors in four hundred years since the last witch burning.

Atem leant over him, gangly with a whiff of morning breath and a scrape of stubble, and kissed his temple resting his weight into his arm before disentangling. Atem didn't speak, couldn't contemplate making Yugi rise or stirring him further, but likewise the pilot couldn't truly sleep through the routine of the morning farewell. Not so much due to the boots but more to the cool muffle of Atem's lips and the security of it all. There was such a pattern here, such an atmosphere, that Yugi knew an inane peace. Yugi's lids fluttered sleepily, digging the heel of his palm into the groove of one eye, and caught sight of Atem foggily. Half twisting onto his side, chin craning weakly over his shoulder, he watched the little gold band round Atem's neck rise from where it had fallen onto Yugi's bare shoulder to settle on the standing man's clavicle.

Atem would put the wedding band round his finger later when the sun was too high for any of the farmers to be working under the heat. Until then, to save it from the dirt and the grind, he'd wear it round his neck while Yugi's chilled and warmed on his hand in the bed. News crews would have a field day wouldn't they? The royal mistress lost to little farmer's wife. Peace.

* * *

(Track- repeat)

The aching cottage door pulled shut in the next room not so long after Yugi slumped back into the bed but as the birds started to rouse he found, expectedly, he couldn't linger in place much longer without Atem's gritty body plied against him. Yugi ached into the other's element, into the man, and with him gone he found he pushed back the quilts. They were sweet, sewn on budgets, with love and practicality by women whose pictures sat in black and white round the home but they weren't Atem.

He pulled on a threadbare nightgown, all thick and cotton and ancient. It was cheap and hardly silken but so plush Yugi had fallen asleep in it on the couch more than once in the early spring afternoons. He dragged his nails through his hair, cared absently at tangles, dislodging scraps of dirt from his skin with his nails.

The bathroom was as old as Sugoroku and the water came from a tank hitched behind the house out towards the woods. The pipes groaned loudly every time he turned a tap and unable to stomach the sound at this hour Yugi wandered idly instead into the lounge. The wood flooring was lovingly varnished dark wood but every day, with Atem dragging more dirt and corn in, it needed a new sweep. So ash and dust clung to the soles of Yugi's bare feet cold and tingling.

"Morning," Sugoroku croaked from his rocking chair by the dead fire which dominated the room. He was hoarse, sandpapery it seemed, but his eyes twinkled even if he was half blind. He was almost completely deaf and petrified with arthritis from a youth hauling cattle round.

"Morning," Yugi yawned absently into the back of his hand and with an accustomed hand felt out the counters of the kitchen unlatching the shutters over the sink to expose himself to new morning light and blooming air.

Only half the plates matched. The cutlery was tarnished. The stove wasn't nearly as reliable as the cast iron implements Atem could use over the fire but Yugi made due. It was an inexact science but very few things here could taste foul. Everything here bloomed, flourished, with the affection and hard work of the villagers. Fathers and sons had hand reared the bacon, the woman two houses down the cobbled streets had given Yugi the eggs yesterday, the bread was baked on Tuesday, the scraps from last night Atem would've given to the chickens across the way this morning on his way out… Everything tingled with a kind of harmonious essence, a treasured simplicity, that processed Imperial delicacies lacked. The effect was so gently magically that even with the bread hand cut sloppily and the eggs a little burnt nothing tasted less than nourishing.

Yugi helped Sugoroku to the table. He was too stiff in the mornings before the heat loosened his muscles and if Yugi didn't know how kind the neighbours were he would've wondered how the old man had managed with Atem at war. It had been charity and camaraderie that had kept the old goat alive and now Atem had returned the village's new idol, all aglow, the townsfolk even tried to take to Yugi.

Yugi got heady halfway through his eggs and, rejecting the efforts of his plate to tempt him entirely, pushed them back to cradle the juice instead. His fingers would smell of the orange rinds till he showered. It was difficult to buy anything out here. No one could seem to understand why you would want to either. It was a place without time.

Atem would fuss at him to eat lunch but never push. He doted too much to demand anything so Yugi could lick his fingers, dazed, and know he could live off the remains of last night's apple pie cold in the fridge when his stomach woke up.

He wretched half a mouthful of eggs into the toilet, bile and juice mingling, a little while later in the bathroom after securing Sugoroku back in his rocker with a new chronicle. He spat out cupping water from the sink to wash his mouth and resolved to shower.

He had to slip off his ring, his bracelet, Yami's dog-tags and drape the dressing gown out over the window frame to shower. The water was never warm enough. Yugi held himself, hands smoothing over his stomach, and to wash his hair had to resort to potions and lotions made from olive oil and bought off trucks from gypsies who came through with commercial goods from four hours away at the nearest actual town (which only had five thousand residents to boast itself, a post office, a bank and a grocer). He pressed at the skin of his hips, felt a little worn and stretched but he'd hardly reached his prime truly. Yugi had never, honestly, been freer or more alive.

* * *

(Track- repeat)

The back veranda had a seat swing Sugoroku's father had cobbled together and upon which the old man had been conceived if the stories were anything to go by. Yugi found himself in it again for the fourth time that week before noon. He hadn't bothered with shoes yet and leaning into the swinging frame had forgotten the book in his lap three pages ago. He was almost actually hungry in a way he thought would stick but he wasn't eager to move as the sun reached the peak of the sky.

The town was too small with too much farmland for anyone to do anything alone. All the men, all the boys, ploughed the fields together and kept the livestock together. They drew lots to see who's fields got harvested or planted first by the group, they kept close count on who had how many sheep, and frugal but generous did everything as a unit. Atem had fallen back into it. The Horakhtys had land and livestock and things to do with seasons that Atem didn't want to escape. He was home so expected himself to help the others he'd been grown with. Harvest would start soon and when it did they'd cancel school because the boys wouldn't turn up for days to help their fathers. Not that the school went much past the ninth grade.

Around noon to three it was too hot for anyone to do anything without heat stroke so Atem came home. They ate, they lingered, and he'd wander off before dinner again to resume communal help. The sun was almost at that point now, so book in lap, Yugi waited and ignored the beginnings of an itch in his belly for sustenance.

Atem came up over the ridge and too lazy to swerve left to the gate hefted himself over the fence. It was made for keeping back sheep, not gangly legendary heroes turned farmers. That however was only for a few months of seclusion so Yugi could hide out. He needed to call Jou tonight actually, ask about Shizuka in the loony bin…

Atem skipped the middle step onto the veranda boots thumping and seemed nearly soaked in drying mud.

"Hey Baby," he cooed, glowing.

Yugi inclined up into him eagerly, into strong arms and tender kisses and sighing contentedly Atem sunk down next to him making the swing rock.

"How are you two?" He smiled between half a dozen kisses as Yugi patted through his hair.

"Hmm," Yugi grunted, tangling his arms round the man's neck to feel the pungent ripple of sweat rolling off Atem from a morning's physical labour.

"Someone giving you trouble?" Atem decided.

"I don't think it likes me." He sighed.

"It _loves_ you," he promised, pushing the heel of his palm against the burgeoning swell of Yugi's belly. That wasn't the real problem though. Yugi knew offspring grew attached and quietly confident Atem certainly loved the little clump of cells already Yugi jus- "You're going to be a fab Mama, Baby."

Hit the nail on the head. Little monster Atem was he needed to stop half reading Yugi's mind (the Imperial blamed the EX0D1A locked in the barn). The pilot pushed into him, settling himself snug in the swing seat as Atem's thumb made rotations over the bump. Yugi barely remembered having a family. He didn't want to be the weak link in this equation because whatever happened Atem would be a glorious father. Of all the grand universal ironies this had to be one of fate's most absurd. Hiding out in the country, in some tiny blotch on the map, to start a family in secret before they escaped back to the world with Atem's child and a future and… God…

Yugi blinked round the burn creeping into his eyes. Fucking parasite was pumping him with hormones that made him all funny in the head. Though, even as Yugi thought that he ached in some kind of mutual apology to the lump for calling it a parasite. He longed, he burned, he loved it viciously and tenderly and brokenly and completely already and it was barely half formed let alone some babe in his arms…

A new Zion, millions of years after the rest had been wiped out. Atem and Yugi could create some new string of the species with a dreadful legacy, tradition, lineage… it was primal and mythic in the same stroke and secretive by its nature. The world wasn't going to be told. Yugi wasn't getting dissected. Atem assured him they were Bohemian citizens with too many friends in high places to be touched by modern science during this process but Atem had surrendered enough to his paranoia to let Yugi be heavy with young here in the middle of nowhere.

That wasn't to say no one knew. Lord it felt to Yugi like half the fucking planet knew. Atem was so glowing, excitable, he'd told every mutually trusted friend he could about his little gypsy young on the way.

Atem unwound a little, resting his boots on the heel and kissed Yugi snuggly. The pilot could spend an eternity without leaving those arms casually hooped loose round his middle. Atem never held, never pressed, never clung. He trusted Yugi was wild enough to come back and gave him a bizarre equal authority. Funnily, stirred, Yugi thought this might just be the perfect place to have the first babe. First? Lord _last_ hopefully (not really Yugi would admit in private)…

"You know Shara?" Atem began casually in the breeze under the shadow of the sun. Shara was one of the men who owned cows in the next field, some old family friend. "He said _Timaeus_."

"Timaeus," Yugi rolled the word over, resting into Atem's shoulder. It tasted blue strangely. "It's handsome."

"I thought so," he smiled with a gentle laugh, "kind of cool. Old."

"Yeah," Yugi concurred.

"What do you want?" Atem gave a flexing, playful, squeeze.

A pause, that lasted only as long as it took to shot a bullet.

"_Yami,_" he imparted honestly, all whispers but he could hardly keep secrets anymore. Atem had the key to every safe locked up in Yugi and he never abused any of them.

"Yami," Atem nodded absently, "if you want Baby."

"You can't like it." Yugi challenged.

"Course I can. It sounds handsome." Atem smiled gently. "You loved him and it was sad. Everything you ever said makes me think he wasn't a bad guy when you got to know him. He just got stuck in a bad place. _It_ did that to a lot of people, my mum even. I don't hate him, or his memory, and I don't think anyone should. I'm glad that you still love him for who he was when he was clean and safe. I kind of miss not getting to meet him properly."

"Really…?"

"Yeah," Atem knocked noses clumsily, "so if you want to call the little one Yami I don't mind. It's nice. Everyone should have family who remembers them happy especially Sennen after what happened to him. He couldn't help it. He got lost."

"What if…?" Yugi swallowed round bile as his stomach tightened strenuously.

"Hmm?" He blinked, lowering his tone as if Yugi were some frightened foal. "What's wrong Baby?"

"What if Heba comes back?" Yugi felt his fingers roam unconsciously, nails stiff, over his own belly to settle like a cage. He didn't want it taken out. Ever. No birth and no learning to walk for this one. "What if this one…? And…" He took a breath. Sniff. _Fucking hormones_.

"Hey, hey," Atem hushed taking him a little closer. "Heba's never coming back. Ever. It's gone. You're safe and we're safe and he's safe and that little one's never going to have to know who or what it was. Heba's never touching this-" His palm pushed over Yugi's compellingly, "-or you or anyone else ever again."

"But what if-" It was a rare illogical moment for Yugi, foolish, but an ever present idea at the back of his mind like the memories ash and the screaming that wafted up to the heaven's from a world obliterated.

"If Heba ever comes back then we'll stop him." Atem promised. "We did it once. We can do it again. I'm not going to let anyone take this away. No one's ruining this world. It's too good a place and I don't think there are a lot of people left who'd let Heba try anyway."

…

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

(Track- Gumi "Transient Apple Salesgirl")

_Ten years later_…

Atem Horakhty felt surreal. To say '_mildly_' would be understating the effect of the day. After all Yami Sennen, his foreign predecessor to Yugi, was thirty-two when he died. Thirty-three more like but still, to Yugi, to them, Yami Sennen would always be thirty-two.

Befittingly after the negotiations with the Kaiba Brothers (co-regents these days inheriting down Mokuba's line) they'd decided not to give Yami Sennen a state funeral. Atem would've argued otherwise but Yugi was too dejected at the idea of a public grave that well-meaning and misunderstanding citizens would deface. They had a grave stone for him, state paid, in Turtle Village behind the house. It was an empty grave, next to Atem's adopted human parents, but to Yugi it was better than a mausoleum.

Yugi had only consented to return to the Empire a handful of times in the last decade outside official missions. The first visit, under Bohemian protection, to come to some agreement with Mahado and the Kaibas had been tenuous but clear. Dartz had clarified: _if you don't want him, or the Knights, we'll take them and, if you intend to arrest them, well… we're going to have a problem_.

Funnily that was still a bone of contention. There were a lot of Bohemians who liked to cry, very loudly, that Yugi Motou and the Knights were officially Republican turf these days even if they wore royal stripes. The whole label of _international heroes_ transposed down to national heroes depending which side of the border you sat on. Atem was Republican but if they could contest it these days the Bohemians would to say Yugi Motou was too. Culture was funny like that. To think it could turn Yugi Motou from national nightmare to Blue Army sweetheart in the time it took to snap your fingers was…

Atem snorted, he wasn't good with heavy thoughts.

His official uniform itched but mercifully, in a well-guarded valley along the largest river in the country, Siege City was cooler than Turtle Village would've been at this time of year.

There'd be summer crops in Turtle Village, near Grandpa's grave, swaying all sour and dusty in the wind just like the ones over the wall of Siege City did now if he craned his eyes a little out the opposing window.

He unbuckled the second button in his collar given the first was perpetually undone. Medal coated or not he still looked scruffy. His chin found his palm and roving a little he pressed up on his toes in the god forsaken dress shoes to find the inner courtyard where elite ops trained five days a week.

He liked living in Siege. It was officially international; the conference point of the peace treaty between Bohemia and Cyprus. It was, also, home of the rebranded Knights who were now an international force. The eight of them, the original eight, were now part of a special ops division that specialized in international organized crime.

That changed the atmosphere of the city. Atem had watched it happen but weirder than that he found he… He liked the odd angles of it. The crass change in the local accent as the Imperials and Republicans intermixed properly, cross border marriages, Ishtar giving them all orders, Jou and Akefia yapping at each other on missions… A home, a peace, a unity he'd…

Atem counted his stars most nights. He was too lucky.

"_Oh come on!_ _Move your sorry asses!_"

The wail came up hard from the inner courtyard. Little Knights in training, little hopefuls, agonized under the sun and biting their tongues dragged their feet on the cement. Yugi didn't like the gentler training tactics. He liked to make them sweat, make them cry, and whether Atem approved or not Yugi would get _every single recruit_ to puke by noon.

"_Move! Move! Move!_" Yugi ordered in the high cut of his natural spat. The sound wasn't deep but it dragged to hiss totally masculine. _"Come on you sorry pathetic fuckers! Show me something worth kicking!_"

He hadn't changed a damn smidge.

Atem shook his head. Seriously? Poor, poor, kids. He snorted. He wouldn't get any mercy tonight either if Yugi dragged his ass to the officer's gym. Everything was a contest: who could do more reps, who'd burn out on less miles, who'd collapse sweaty and useless first… Yugi won mostly but Atem hated to make it easy. Ass that wouldn't quit his Spitfire had.

Though, actually, sometimes Atem wasn't allowed in the gym. Yugi had this thing every now and again, about once a month roughly, where ever so quietly he'd casually weasel Jou, Otogi and Honda off. He liked it when it was just the four of them, the original imperial four, training together. Yugi would never admit he was that nostalgic though.

Not that Atem didn't opt to do the same thing with Malik, Odion and Akefia…

Yugi…

Yugi looked really good in Republican clothes. It was a stupid little kink of Atem's but he liked seeing it. They had a preference for modern cuts away from the old imperial aesthetic and it suited Yugi weirdly well to have all those slim lines and clean colours. It was a distracted thought but Atem noticed this shit when he daydreamed instead of working. It was the reports. Atem Horakhty sucked ass at paper work.

If he snuck round the back stairs of the building could he get lunch without Mai catching him moonlighting?

Yeah he was a bad, bad, role model.

"-_shit for brains!_"

Yugi wasn't always so hard on them, really, he just…He lightened up a little in the later training cycles. Atem thought so anyway but he was one of a select few men who had the innate ability to distinguish between Yugi's varying intensities of scream. He needed it to know when he was in deep shit at home.

That ability, to scream he meant, was something Yami Horakhty had inherited in spades.

Atem groaned a little at that. Kid wanted to go to the Military Academy in Siege, fight tough in mechs just like his folks, but Yami and authority in general… He cringed. Anzu used to reel back uncomfortably when Yugi smacked the child round the back of the head stoutly, like he was prone to, but these days not so much. Yugi's kind of dismissive discipline of disapproval and sass was effective but infectious. Yami could out argue sailors (which he had on vacation with his uncle Akefia; another bad influence).

Atem had a policy with the boys, their boys, which was along the lines of: "_If your Ma said no then I wouldn't do it. Hey, if ya want to try your luck, go ahead but I'm twice yer size and I don't question your Ma._"

Yugi hated it when Atem called him that but it fell out after years in rural no-man's land.

Atem really, really, wanted Yami to… make friends he guessed? Then again the eldest Horakhty spawn didn't make himself easily likable and circumstance didn't help. Ego, pride, all sort of compounded into nine years of sass mouth in the little runt… It was Atem figured, on some level, that Yami was just defensive.

Yugi and Atem had (and still did) caused a media circus with their whole shot gun marriage fiasco. Showing up with a newborn at Siege after the negotiations didn't exactly help that. The press ate it up. The story had changed their images and these days people sort of saw them or _used_ them as a symbol of the peace treaty. It was perfect spin.

The media however wasn't so big on Yami Sennen's legacy. Impressions ranged from general sympathy to loathing still after the long standing wounds of the Z0-RC festered. The rest of the world just didn't get it. The full story never really got out in a coherent way that anyone else could appreciate the same way Atem and Yugi did. After all Mahado and Dartz had capped any release on the knowledge that the Ancients of Zion had _ever_ existed let alone that they still did. It was necessary for the personal protection of the Horakhtys. That in turn however complicated telling Yami's story…

How did you explain that Yami Sennen was a hero if you couldn't tell people, clearly, who Heba was?

There were therefore people that didn't like the fact that Atem Horakhty had a kid named after one of the most hated, tragic, figures in recorded history.

They might've loved Yami, their Yami, dearly. Atem might not have changed his name for anything given how it made Yugi so placated, so appeased, but he was sure that there were children, cruel kids, who had given Yami Horakhty smack. He was sure, bitterly, that someone somewhere had told their boy that Yugi Motou was a Sennen Loyalist and Yami was named after a monster.

The other boys were luckier in that stead but then the other two took more after Atem than Yugi. Yami was all Yugi. Yami could take it. Yami would be tough. He'd be nasty and rude no doubt but he'd have Mama's talent and Mama's success and someone would love him through all the crass mouthing. Atem hoped so anyway.

You know, in retrospect, they probably had the kids a bit early. Unnecessarily early, too soon, but… He wouldn't have changed it. Not a second of it. He didn't care if Yugi never took a press interview in his life, he didn't care about any of the potential fall-out… He cared about now. He cared about them being happy. He cared about how they had a network and drunken Christmases and the Ishtar rings and surrogate nephews and nieces …

Being an Ancient didn't mean Atem wanted to spend his whole life looking back to the sour, papery, taste of ash. He just…

You know he remembered it more exactly now. His pod had been upturned in farm construction near Turtle Village. Rising salt tables had brought it up and woken him lonely in the middle of nowhere. He'd been so drugged though that he'd wandered in a haze barely cognizant till he found the Horakhtys.

They'd told him they were his parents.

He knew now his human foster folks had lied to him but they were simple folk. They didn't know any better. It wasn't spite. Mister Horakhty and Sugoroku Horakhty had lost Missus Horakhty the same day they lost her baby. When they found some funny looking boy, wandering the fields without and real cognizance they took pity and mercy with a grain of selfishness. It wasn't something Atem had bothered to confront Grandpa Horakhty about in his final years. It hadn't been worth it. So they wanted a son, so they'd lied, but at least they'd loved him and given him a wonderfully happy childhood.

This, now, was where he needed to bother his attention.

He kind of felt half the skill of growing up was learning to let go of anger, resentment, bad things and days. He liked this world. He thought his mother and Yugi's mother would like it to. Hell, he even thought Heba would.

He hoped Yami Sennen would've.

He really, sincerely, did.

…

…

* * *

**EXTRA: PROLOGUE: **Approximately four million years ago.

(Track- Portal 2 "Cara Mia Addio" official extended version)

_Dr H. Gem_

He was so used to scrawling it over forms he found it hard to comprehend that this would the last time he ever wrote it.

It turned his stomach, tensed him, and very cold suddenly he found it hard to move. He tapped the pen on the clipboard filling the quiet and as his knees came up to provide a flat surface under the board he was acutely aware of the hospital whites.

Timaeus looked sick already beside him and reaching he took the man's hand gingerly. At forty-two Timaeus would be a little old to remarry he suspected. Still Timaeus took his hand, laced their fingers a bit more intimately than he would've liked and squeezed.

He could still feel the ache inside him from the last tear.

_Another miscarriage_…

"Don't do this." Timaeus hushed, ignoring the unconscious glow of the security camera.

"I'm already cleared," he answered lazily. "Sides," he sighed, "this'll be a new world when I'm done. It'll be the single greatest AI ever constructed."

"Who cares?" Timaeus rasped. "You'll die. I won't have you anymore. I won't be able to kiss you anymore..."

"The HEBA's my baby," he tried to explain but his voice didn't have the necessary oomph to really fake passion over his resignation. He just wanted to die really.

"We can have children."

"No. I can't," he answered prickling with old grains of vicious self-loathing. "That's the fourth one we lost. I'm useless at this."

"You're _not_ useless." Timaeus hissed, almost crushing his fingers.

"I don't want to do it again, there's no point Tim, I'm infertile."

"It doesn't matter," he tried, "I don't care. We can adopt."

"I care," he whispered stubbornly, "and I don't want to."

"It's the same thing," the Knight hushed, "it won't matter in the end. We'll love it like it was ours anyway. I don't care. I just want you."

"I love you," he promised. "But I want this."

Pharaoh's wife was half his age and now, four weeks from the wedding night; pregnant. It almost made him angry to see it on the newsfeeds. Embittered he lay the pen down to stroke up Timaeus' tense forearm as he held his fingers on the knight's thigh. It was over today; their marriage, his life, all for a brain scan and possible transplantation.

"You won't be you anymore," Timaeus choked, "and what if it doesn't even work? What if they don't even use your mind for HEBA?"

Timaeus didn't totally understand the process of the persona templates or the data configurations necessary in constructing the AI but it was probably better that way.

"It'll be fine." He promised.

"You're letting them _kill_ you."

"I want the government to finish this," he murmured, "I want to be part of it."

"This thing won't be you," Timaeus whispered.

"It'll be close."

Realistically he didn't think so but his mind, his brainwaves, would teach the machine how to think with some sentience. His mind would be a layout formation to teach the machine how to be. The personality shouldn't translate, probably wouldn't survive, but something of him, some kink, might make it into HEBA in the finished, polished, version if they didn't replace him with another template.

He just wanted to be gone, dead.

Timaeus held him so tight, kissed him so hard, that he was sure the man would rip the hospital whites against his tender nature. He cupped the knight's cheeks, realized as he waited to leave that they were both crying.

When the hydraulic door closed he knew it was the last time he'd see Timaeus' face.

He hated that.

For a second he…

He was on the bench next through, letting them dope him up for this government approved suicide. He was going to be part of the only almost-living thing he'd ever made. Faux life. He swallowed, felt his eyes sting, knew as he closed them he'd never wake up again.

God he hated pregnancy, carriers, babies…

People.

He _hated_ people.

…

He was gone.

Synapses turned to electronics.

* * *

(Track- repeat)

It was just a file, like ten million others burnt or salvaged, but when Yura the sixty-seventh Paraxia-Pura of Zion turned it over in his fingers it seemed unnaturally heavy. The ink seemed dark, the letters seemed to writhe upon the page, just from the knowledge of what it stood for and what they had left.

Very soon this file might be all that was left of their species. Very soon he and the Pharaoh and the other survivors of the planetary genocide of Zion would die. Everything would rot away at the hands of time. Their whole world was sighing to empty darkness. All while Yura's only child and Pharaoh's boy slept through an eternity perhaps never to wake again. For how long they'd last in the cryogenics, beside EX0D1A, just dreaming he could only guess.

The file was one of the original HEBA AI systems files.

This thing, this monster, was… Yura flipped the pages. He found an old picture, a mug shot, of the original Zion citizen used for the AI brain template. He was a well formed carrier, a little old, a little sharp but there was a kind of strength in his eyes Yura recognized in his own mirror these days now his only child was gone. Heba- the syllables still hurt- had taken everything from them and now squatting in this bunker Yura was still hesitant about whether or not the AI was really destroyed in the tectonic, radioactive, molten wasteland that was left of their planet and species.

He scanned one of the reprinted status pages.

"**H.E.B.A System**

_Original Brain Template: Dr H. Gem.  
Persona Match: approved.  
6/12 AI prototype passed regulatory commission. AI into secondary development.  
9/4 AI systems reject secondary brain templates. Persona matches unsuccessful._

_12/16 AI H.E.B.A final prototype developed, original template (H. Gem) used, AI initiated to supreme authority control of all planetary network systems. _

_H.E.B.A authorization-_

_AMMENDMENT XX/XX/XXXX  
Miss you Tim. Still.  
_  
Yura tensed.

_Tim_, Timaeus Gem, the husband of… A machine shouldn't have…

…

Then again it only made sense he supposed. He'd spent his whole youth reading scripture and astrophysics that suggested to him that nothing truly evil could come solely from nature or microchips. If Heba had been so vile, so wretched, then some part of the machine had to have been a living, breathing, soul once.

He found the picture again, of the dead Dr H. Gem, the carrier used for the project. He had been alive somewhere in the machine, his impulses, and it had…

Yura took the corners in his fingers and gritting his teeth ripped the image till the sound satisfied him and the pieces were inconsolable. To give Heba a living face helped. To give himself someone to hate so fully, someone who once could've loved or hated back more than a machine's cold approximation, satisfied somehow. Dr H Gem could've been reasoned with perhaps but as an AI nothing could be reasoned to Heba.

One carrier, some nobody that history would forget, had cost Yura his reign, his four thousand year old traditions and his only child…

He spat, thick and well-aimed, onto the note;

"_Miss you Tim. Still._"

And closed the file.

* * *

1 I call Yugi, H. Gem and Yura "he" because by human standards they would be even if they were the respective females of their species. Just a technical thing I decided to go with because Heba has always been a human 'he' here.  
2 I have been assured that if you would like to do a second read through there are Easter eggs you might've missed the first time!

**New Fics**:

1 "_In the East_" will begin next week with a female Yugi. This is my only story with a female Yugi so, if that's not your thing, any others you see from me feel safe knowing they'll have a male Yugi.  
2 Tracks will continue if they fit  
3 The week after next I will possibly start posting "_Tale of Two Apartments_"

**NEXT TIME**: _"In The East" Chapter 1_:

Atemu is the second son the Sultan. He returns after three years as ambassador to the West intent on getting his father's blessing for his impending marriage to the Lady Anzu. Unfortunately the proceedings of his visit are complicated and Atemu is forced to broker a peace not only with the court but also with his father's white witch, the Gem-Faher, Yugi. Atem's inability to compromise, his stubbornness, his superstition and his romanticism may make the the issue impossible to resolve any time in the next ten years…


End file.
